Mary Anderson (labor leader)

Mary Anderson was a Labor activist and an advocate for women in the workplace.

Mary Anderson was born in Lidkping, Sweden 1872, daughter of Magnus and Matilda Anderson. She emigrated to the United States when she was sixteen in 1888. Once in America she worked as a dishwasher at a lumberjacks boarding house in Ludington, Michigan. She moved to Chicago where she worked in a garment factory and as a shoe stitcher in West Pullman. She joined the Boot and Shoe Workers Union and was elected president of the womens stitchers Local 94 in 1900. She became a leader in the Womens Trade Union League in Chicago, Illinois. She gained valuable experience from the Womens Trade Union League in public administration. She then applied these skills to her work with the Womens Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor which she was the first director of in 1920. She directed and used the Bureau foryears to better the working conditions, wages, and hours for women. And even once she retired from office Mary Anderson continued to fight for the rights of working women.

Source: Wikipedia