• Glaze-dippers at a Detroit spark plug factory, about 1912. This workroom is highly exceptional for its light, air, space, and cleanliness. This was a time of much publicity and too little action concerning factory conditions. Crusading social workers and government inspectors such as Frances Perkins, Jane Addams, and Florence Kelley exposed a shocking lack of safety from fire, toxins, machinery, and contaminants. Wages were usually below subsistence, with conditions and pay the worst for women and children. Work hazards were a major cause of death and disability. A tiny handful of employers were proud their “ideal” factories.

Workers in “Ideal” Factory postcard

From Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press by Julia M. Allen and Jocelyn H. Cohen

  • Part of the Bread & Roses series, Women in the American Labor Movement, a set of 9 postcards. Second printing, printed offset in sepia with blue border and copper accent, 3 ½” x 5½”, with a special Bread & Roses emblem created as part of the design. Although Nancy and Jocelyn preferred the large jumbo size postcards, postcard collectors generally only purchased the traditional “standard size” of 3 ½” x 5½” and with this set they hoped to pick up notice and recognition by the deltiology world.
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  • HISTORY / Women
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