Members of the Matchmakers Union, 1888 CE.
Relates to:
Photograph of members of the Matchmakers Union in London, 1888 from Annie Besant, Annie Besant - An Autobiography. 2nd ed. London, 1893.
In 1888, 1400 workers at the Bryant and May match factory in London waged a groundbreaking strike against falling wages, abuse, and dangerous job conditions--one of the first successful mass industrial actions by truly ‘proletarian’ labor. As this picture suggests, the strikers were primarily women, many of them teenagers.
Source/Citation:
Image via Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12085 Other sources from the Matchmakers strike available from the UK’s Trade Union Congress at www.unionhistory.info/matchworkers/matchworkers
Type:
Contemporaneous Resource
Access Level:
Licensed for Public Use