“A Life Stripped of Humanity”: Using the Buffalo Department Store Strike of 1913 as a Case Study of Abused Pre-World War I Female Department Store Workers

Lecture Center 3A

When one considers the movement of women into the labor force, images of Rosie the Riveter, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, or New England textile mills are often conjured. But many women entered the workforce through retail employment, seemingly a much better work environment. Considering awful workplace conditions, these retail women workers are often overlooked. This paper argues that pre-World War I era female department store workers were an abused class that suffered as much as many of their female contemporaries. The paper begins with a general discussion of women’s labor history up until 1913, with a focus on women in the retail industry. Next, the paper dives into the foremost primary sources about these workers, a 1913 report from a New York State commission investing a city-wide strike of, mostly female, department store clerks in Buffalo and multiple newspapers’ coverage of the events of the strike, from both the workers’ and owners’ perspectives. Within this source are stories of sexual abuse, financially-crippling uniform policies, terribly unsanitary working conditions, and physical detriments directly resulting from work. These instances are supported by other primary accounts of department stores that are contemporaneous to the chief source. Despite the variance of location and people, similar stories of abuse resound. Ultimately, this paper reminds us that women rarely faced an inviting and refined workplace in the early twentieth century. Even in industries like retail and department stores – which are highly feminized in the American consciousness – they clawed and suffered to earn decent places in the workforce