ABSTRACT
In 1937, 23-year-old Myra Wolfgang strode to the middle of one of Detroit’s forty Woolworth’s five-and-dime stores and gave the signal for the planned sit-down strike of salesclerks and counter waitresses to begin. The main Woolworth’s store was already on strike, and the union was threatening to escalate the strike to all of the stores in Detroit. The story of union growth in the 1930s is the familiar, oft-told tale. But for women, the 1940s proved just as crucial. For one, the labor movement feminized significantly. Yes, the number of women in the labor movement skyrocketed in wartime and then plummeted during reconversion, but what often gets lost is that the numbers rebounded in the late 1940s and then remained far above the 1930s levels both in absolute and percentage terms. The central players are women like Esther Peterson who grew up in Provo, Utah, where her father was the local school superintendent.
