Photo: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
In the 1800s Troy was the “Collar City,” where factories made the detachable shirt collars and cuffs that most American men wore. Hundreds of women washed, starched and ironed those collars in hot, dangerous laundries.
Kate Mullany, an immigrant from Ireland, was one of them. She was a teenager when her father died and she became a main earner for her family.
The union
In 1864 Mullany organized the laundresses into the Collar Laundry Union. They went on strike for higher pay and better conditions and won raises. The union is considered one of the first sustained labor unions for women in the United States, and it lasted for several years.
Mullany later held a post with the National Labor Union, an early sign of women’s role in the labor movement.
Her home today
Her brick house on Eighth Street in Troy is a National Historic Landmark and was designated a National Historic Site. The American Labor Studies Center has worked on restoring it and uses it for education.
Mullany died in 1906 and is buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Troy. Her story is a regular stop on labor history tours of the city.
