_Women's Unions in America._--In America women are fewer in numbers in the Trade Union movement, but they have occupied a more prominent place in it there than in our own country. The American labour movement may roughly be dated from the year 1825. In that year the tailoresses of New York formed a Union and went on strike, and from that time to the present women wage-earners have constantly formed Unions and agitated for better pay and conditions of work. The first women to enter factory employment were native Americans, largely New England girls, the daughters of farmers, girls who would naturally be more independent and have a higher standard of comfort than the factory hand in old countries. Several important strikes occurred among the cotton-mill girls at Dover, New Hampshire, in 1828 and again in 1834, and also at Lowell in 1834 and 1836. It does not appear that these strikes resulted in any stable combinations. Subsequently, between 1840 and 1860, a number of labour reform associations were organised, chiefly among textile mill girls, but including also representatives of various clothing trades. These societies organised a number of successful strikes, increased wages, shortened the working day, and also carried on a successful agitation for protective legislation. The leader of the Lowell Union, Sarah Bagley, had worked for ten years in New England cotton mills. She was the most prominent woman labour leader of the period, and in 1845 became president of the Lowell Female Labour Reform Association, which succeeded in obtaining thousands of operatives' signatures to a petition for the ten hours' day. The Female Industrial Association was organised in New York, 1845, a Union not confined to any one trade but including representatives from tailoresses, sempstresses, crimpers, book-folders and stitchers, etc. Between 1860 and 1880 local branches were formed and temporary advantages gained here and there by women cigar-makers, tailoresses and sempstresses, umbrella sewers, cap-makers, textile workers, laundresses and others. Women cigar-makers especially, who were at first brought into the trade in large numbers as strike breakers, after a struggle were organised either as members of men's Unions or in societies of their own, and once organised "were as faithful to the principles of unionism as men." The Umbrella Sewers' Union of New York gave Mrs. Paterson, then visiting America, the idea of starting the movement for women's Unions in London. The women shoemakers formed a national Union of their own, called the Daughters of St. Crispin. In this period there was little organisation among the women of the textile mills, and the native American girls were to some extent ousted by immigrants having a lower standard of life. There were, however, a number of ill-organised strikes which for the most part failed.