The YWCA Industrial Department and the challenges of organizing women and African American workers
Kester explains the work of the YWCA Industrial Department in Nashville, Tennessee, during the 1930s. Earlier in the interview, Kester discussed how the Industrial Department differed from other branches of the YWCA in that it sought to work with working women and girls directly. Here, he focuses on how although the YWCA was more progressive in its approach to race and labor than was the YMCA, they still had difficulty getting labor organizations to organize women and African American workers.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Howard Kester, August 25, 1974. Interview B-0007-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ARY FREDERICKSON:
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Do you remember what the attitude of the YWCA Industrial Department was
toward trade unions?
- HOWARD KESTER:
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Well we pushed to try to get the girls organized but the AF of L, that
was before the CIO. The AF of L, it was as stubborn as it could be about
us, you know.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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About accepting the women?
- HOWARD KESTER:
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Yes, accepting anybody. I tried to get Negroes for example, who were
brick masons, but they were the last ones to be put on the job, and I
worked with the AF of L people, held meetings in the Labor Temple and
all that sort of thing, but they just weren't concerned about giving
work to Negroes. You see the trouble with organized labor was it was
interested in higher wages and shorter hours, and they weren't
interested in the general organization of labor, particularly
Negroes.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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I see. Well, was there a fear on the part of the people in the Industrial
Department about unions, or . . .
- HOWARD KESTER:
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I think the . . . so far as I can recall, there was not . . . it was not
fear, it was simply lack of cooperation on the part of organized labor
and the top leadership in the YW.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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What about the YMCA or YWCA generally?
- HOWARD KESTER:
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The YMCA didn't amount to a hill of beans, excuse me. The YMCA maintained
a "hands off" policy toward industrial problems. The
YWCA, on a whole, was far ahead of the YMCA.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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In Nashville and everywhere else in the South as far as you know? Was the
YWCA elite leaders, were they opposed to unions, were they opposed to .
- HOWARD KESTER:
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I don't think so, because they let me speak or pray.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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What do you think was your wife's motivation, main motivation in working
with the Industrial Department?
- HOWARD KESTER:
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Because she knew the conditions that these girls faced, and she thought
that the best service that she could render was in working with this
group.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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Did she view it . . . you spoke a few minutes ago about your feelings
about working with the miners was that it was a class struggle that
everyone was involved in. Did that extend into her work, did she see it
as a class struggle? It wasn't a feeling . . . a mothering feeling
toward the group, you know, "You've had a hard life, and I want
to help you as much as I can." Which was it? Was it more . . .
- HOWARD KESTER:
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It was both, I think.
