Gertrude Barnum
Gertrude Barnum was a prominent social worker and labor organizer born in Chester, Illinois, in the late 19th century. Growing up in a politically active family, she initially struggled with the expectations of her upper-class surroundings and sought meaningful work in settlement houses, notably serving as chief social worker at Henry Booth House in Chicago. Barnum's focus extended beyond merely alleviating poverty; she aimed to address its root causes, becoming a significant figure in the labor movement. As the first secretary and national organizer of the National Women's Trade Union League, she played a crucial role in advocating for women's labor rights.
Her activism included supervising strikes for women textile workers and successfully rallying support from social elites and politicians during significant labor disputes, such as the 1913 New York City garment workers' strike. Additionally, she served as an investigative agent for the Commission on Industrial Relations, contributing to understanding the industrial unrest of her time. After retiring from activism in 1919, Barnum moved to California, where she continued her work and reflected on labor developments. She passed away at the age of eighty-one, leaving behind a legacy of commitment to social justice and labor rights.
Subject Terms
Gertrude Barnum
- Gertrude Barnum
- Born: September 29, 1866
- Died: June 17, 1948
Social worker and labor organizer, was born in Chester, Illinois, the second of four children and second daughter of William Henry Barnum and Letitia (Hyde) Barnum, originally from New York State. Her father was a prominent lawyer, circuit judge, and Democratic political figure in Chicago. There is no record of her graduation from Evanston Township High School, and she left the University of Wisconsin after one year, having maculated at the age of twenty-five.
Like many young women of her generation, Barnum felt uncomfortable in her upper-class environment and went into settlement house work. She served an apprenticeship at Hull House during the 1890s and became chief social worker at Henry Booth House in Chicago (1902-03). Unlike many others, however, she gradually became more concerned with eliminating the causes of poverty than with treating its symptoms. She became the first secretary of the National Women’s Trade Union League, founded in 1903, and its national organizer. From 1907 to 1910 Barnum was an officer of the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, which became the Women’s Political Union. A tall, commanding figure, socially at ease with local elites, she became accomplished at winning public sympathy for workers while supervising strikes of women textile workers in Fall River and Boston, Massachusetts; Troy, New York; and Aurora, Illinois. In 1911 she became a special agent for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and toured the Midwest urging merchants and consumers to boycott apparel made in cities where strikes were in progress.
During the strike of New York City garment workers in 1913 Barnum won the cooperation of socialites and politicians for the strikers, and many college women joined the picket lines. Mayor William Gaynor refused to deputize manufacturers’ guards, and Theodore Roosevelt, after visiting the neighborhood, wrote an indignant letter to New York State Assemblyman M. Schapp, demanding a legislative inquiry into conditions in the garment industry.
In 1914 Barnum became an investigative agent for the Commission on Industrial Relations, created by Congress at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson to investigate the causes of widespread industrial unrest. In 1918 and 1919 she was assistant director of investigative services for the Department of Labor.
In 1919 she retired from the cause to which she had contributed so much. Barnum might have been describing herself when she wrote of a group of women strikers in the button industry, “It is pure social passion which activates some of them in these trying days, and no special concern for their own interests.” After her retirement, she moved to California. Before dying there of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of eighty-one, she worked on Democratic Processes in the Labor Development, 1885-1930, later published at an unknown date.
Gertrude Barnum contributed articles to Charities and the Commons, 1905-1908, and Outlook, 1913-1917. “How Industrial Peace Has Been Brought to the Clothing Trade” was reprinted as a pamphlet from The Independent, October 3, 1912. Barnum’s organizing work is treated in L. Levine, The Women’s Garment Workers (1924) and A. Henry, Women and the Labor Movement (1923). For other biographical material see E. L. Barnum and F. Barnum, Genealogical Record of the Barnum Family (1912). See also Notable American Women (1971).