Arlington Community Education

Just in time for Women’s History Month, explore Boston women’s trade unionism and suffrage movements. Led by proud, defiant women, they were divided along class lines. Suffragists appealed to the legislature to limit the right to vote to native born women. Unions were male dominated until Mary Kenney O’Sullivan founded Boston’s WTUL (Women’s Trade Union League) in 1903. Women’s voices grew from the foundation laid by the Denison House and the WEIU (Women’s Education & Industrial Union). It wasn’t until the early 20th century that Boston’s suffragists and non-native working women realized that to achieve their goals, they would need to unite. Ages 10+