Some of them had been in the mills as long as forty years, but they walked out with the girls.
There you have the story of women's realization of themselves as a group.

Next you encounter the realization of the sisterhood of women.
The Boston Branch of the Women's Trade Union League, through its secretary, Mabel Gillespie, Radcliffe graduate, joined the strikers.
Backed up by the Boston Central Labor Union, and the United Textile Workers of Fall River, the strikers fought their fight during ten weeks of anxiety and deprivation.
The employers were firm in their determination to go out of business before treating with the strikers as a group.

A hand, mind you, exists as an individual, a very humble individual, but one to be received and conferred with.

Hands, considered collectively, have no just right to exist.

An employers' association is a necessity of business life.