Throwback 2019-2020 Lecture Series - Part 3

Board Member P. Thomas Carroll shared an informative presentation on the history associated with the Kate Mullany National Historic Site, and its plans for moving forward when he joined us for the museum’s February 2020 lecture at the Van Schaick Island Country Club. 

Kate Mullany was born in England around 1845 to Irish parents, coming to NYC in 1850 before moving to Troy in 1853. Kate and her siblings worked in the profitable factories that gave Troy its alias as Collar City. Women were 80% of the workforce in this industry, working as collar sewers and laundresses for up to 14 hours a day at a rate of $3 a week. Putting that salary into perspective, it was actually half an average household’s income in those days. In 1864, these workers held a strike, prompted by the greenback inflation from the Civil War. As part of this strike, Kate Mullany organized the Collar Laundry Union (CLU) in February 1864 – this was the first all-women’s union. 

The 1864 strike lasted 5 ½ days across 14 laundries, succeeding in winning a 25% wage increase and earning support from Troy Iron Molders Union No. 2 and the larger “Worker City” community, including William H. Sylvis, Iron Molders International Union President. That year, the family purchased the property at 350-352 Eighth Street. Kate was appointed Assistant Secretary of the National Labor Union - the first national female union officer. She led strikes in 1866, March 1869 and May 1869 to protest the level of workers’ wages. 

Manufacturers also organized after suffering from the inflation and continuous strikes, pressuring laundry owners to hold out, recruiting scabs, launching local advertising, and refusing to send collars and cuffs to organized laundry. Kate reported to her followers that as a result of negotiations, the employers were willing to offer a pay increase but it would be at the expense of union membership. Workers chose to take the extra pay, and the CLU established the Union Line Collar and Cuff Manufactory Cooperative in an attempt to continue their efforts. Ultimately the CLU dissolved in 1869. Kate moved to Buffalo around 1870, married John Fogarty, and owned a laundry named “Troy Laundry”.  In 1906, she died at Eighth Street and was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery. A Celtic cross was erected at the formerly unmarked gravesite, dedicated September 1999.

The property was designated a National Historic Site by Congress in 2005, and was included in New York State’s Women Heritage Trail in 2007 (the only site representing working class women). The site has seen activity like an archaeological study, conducted by Hartgen Archaeological Associates in 2007. A historic Structure Report by John G. Waite Associates was completed in January 2010. The property adjacent to the house at the corner of Eighth and Hoosick streets was purchased in 2004 by the American Labor Studies Center to create a park to honor trade union women pioneers. The house acts as the home of the American Labor Studies Center on the second floor, the first serving as a museum and the third under restoration to become a recreation of the apartment on this floor that the Mullany family lived in while calling this building home.