bread." The fact was that working women had not yet learned to see the connection between the ballot and bread.
KNIGHTS OF LABOR
Woman's position in the American labor movement became more firmly established with the formation of the Knights of Labor in 1869. This organization, begun as a secret society like that of the Masons, gradually developed into a powerful, national federation of the working class. From its beginning it stood for the admission of women on equal terms with men. In the preamble to its constitution, adopted at the first national convention in 1878, was set down as one of its principal objects, "to secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work." After the convention of 1881 women began to enter the organization in great numbers. In 1885 a department of woman's work was created, and at the annual convention of the following year the sixteen women delegates present were appointed a permanent committee to investigate the conditions of working women.
A woman of rare ability and splendid devotion to the cause of her class, Leonora M. Barry, was elected general investigator. Leonora M. Barry, like Sarah G. Bagley of an earlier date, was one of those exceptional personalities who are representative of an entire movement, in whose life and work the struggles, hopes and aims of many thousands are recorded. Mr. John B. Andrews, in the "History of Women in Trade Unions," gives us the following brief description of Leonora Barry's life before she came into the labor movement. "In 1879 she was left a young widow with three children, the baby less than a year old. Her eyesight failed, and she had to give up dressmaking. She went into a hosiery mill in Amsterdam, N. Y. The first day she earned 11 cents; the first week 65 cents. She was somewhat disturbed by conditions as she found them. She was particularly incensed by the insults to which she found young girls were obliged to submit in order to hold their jobs. Then she heard for the first time of the Knights of Labor. She was attracted by the equal pay for equal work
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