Today’s “meet an economics alumna” post features Belva Mary Herron whose only academic degree was a B.L. from the University of Michigan in 1889. Her greatest hit “Progress of Labor Organization among Women” was awarded the third Caroline Wilby Prize in 1904 “given annually to the student who has produced the best original work within any of the departments of Radcliffe College” .
The Progress of Labor Organization Among Women, Together with Some Considerations Concerning Their Place in Industry. University of Illlinois. The University Studies Vol. I, No. 10 (May, 1905).
Herron’s only other publication I have been able to find was an article, Factory Inspection in the United States, published in the American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 12, No. 4 (January, 1907), pp. 487-99.
For the last four (or five) years of her life (she died in mid-career at age 43) she was on the faculty of Rockford College in Illinois. Between her undergraduate days and her final position at Rockford College, as best as I have been able to piece together, Belva Mary Herron wandered from the universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Illinois, then through Radcliffe and Wellesley Colleges, finding time for a year of study in Germany (1896-97).
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Review by Edith Abbott in Journal of Political Economy (1905)
Labor Organization among Women. By BELVA MARY HERRON. (Studies of the University of Illinois.) Urbana: The University Press, 1905. 8vo, pp. 79.
A careful study of the progress of labor organization among women is a most welcome contribution to our knowledge of one of the most important phases of women’s work. Miss Herron makes no attempt in this monograph to discuss trade-unionism by and large in either its theoretical or practical aspects, but confines herself closely to a statement of the facts regarding the organizations in which women are found in the largest numbers, and a discussion of the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of women as unionists.
After an investigation of the status of women in fourteen of the principal labor organizations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, two questions should perhaps be raised: (i) Is there any evidence to show that women are to be considered a factor in the trade-union movement in this country today? (2) How do women differ from men as trade-unionists? A third question, as to the reasons why women should belong to unions, also suggests itself, but appears on second thought to be superfluous, for there is no special women’s problem here. There are the same advantages in organization for women as for men.
With regard to the first question, it is clear that woman’s rôle in trade-unionism is a very slight one. Though admitted into almost all the unions on the same footing as men, they have little or no influence on the organizations. Occasionally they serve as delegates to conventions, but the number of such delegates is very far from being in proportion to the number of women members. In short, it seems fair to say that women are not to be considered a factor in present-day unionism.
With regard to the differences between women and men as members of labor organizations, Miss Herron’s own statement should be quoted:
[Women] are not as well organized as men—a smaller percentage is in the union than is in the trade. Nearly all officials testify that it is harder to organize women than men; a number say that when they once do understand union principles and become interested in the movement, they are excellent workers; there is a unanimous opinion that there are always some capable working-women and active unionists whose good sense and enthusiasm are of great advantage to the organization. (P. 66.)
In summarizing the conditions unfavorable to women’s effectiveness in trade unions, Miss Herron regards as temporary the draw- backs which come from the “several trades ” — the low degree of vitality and intelligence which result from miserable wages and bad sanitation; but she points out that there are other and permanent difficulties in the way — that women are the unskilled workers, and lack of vital interest in the trade; that many of them are young and do not take their industrial situation seriously; that they have more home interests; that most of them expect to marry, and regard their work as only a temporary employment, which results “in an unwillingness to sacrifice any present for a future good, as is often necessary in the union, or to give time and energy to build up an organization with which they will be identified but a few years.”
Those who have faith that there are large possibilities for women in industry, when the conventional ideas regarding women’s work shall have been readjusted, will not be inclined to regard these difficulties as “permanent” in any true sense. It may be suggested here that the largest field of usefulness for such organizations as the Women’s Trade Union League lies in attempting to remove these very difficulties. There is no ineradicable reason why women should not be given proper industrial training, and there is abundant testimony to show that they become very efficient workers with such training. Miss Herron points out that women are in industrial life to stay, and if that is true, we must help them to stay self-respectingly — as skilled laborers with a decent wage and an honest, workmanlike attitude toward their work.
On the whole, the monograph is one for which those who are interested in working-women should be grateful. It not only contains interesting and valuable information regarding women as unionists, but it also throws some much-needed light on the difference between women’s work and men’s work. In certain important industries it contains a short account of the relation of women to the earlier labor movement in the United States, a brief history of women’s trade unions in England, and sketches of organizations, like the Women’s Trade Union League, which are in sympathy with the movement for the organization of working-women.
EDITH ABBOTT.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
Source: Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 13, No. 4 (September 1905), pp. 605-607.
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Personal Note (1899)
University of Nebraska.—Miss Belva Mary Herron has been appointed Instructor in Political Economy at the University of Nebraska. She was born in Pittsburg, Pa., September 23, 1866, received her early education in private schools in Mexico, Mo., and Jacksonville, Ill. And her college education in the University of Michigan, where she received the degree of Bachelor of Letters in 1889. She has subsequently pursued graduate studies at the Universities of Michigan, Chicago and Wisconsin. In 1898 Miss Herron was appointed Assistant Instructor in Political Economy.
Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14 (November, 1899), p. 67.
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Belva Mary Herron, UM Class of ’89-’90, Lincoln Neb.
[with portrait, 1902]
Teacher in Girls’ Academy, Jacksonville, Ill., ’91. Studied in Germany ’96-’97. Fellow U. of C. ’93-’94. Instructor in Political Economy, University of Nebraska ’98-’02.
Source: The Michiganensian, 1902, p. 285.
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News from the Class of ‘89
[1910]
Belva M. Herron, ’89, who has occupied the chair of Political Economy and Political Science at Rockford College, Rockford, Ill., for the past four years, is expert agent for the United States Department of Labor. Address, Mexico, Mo.
Source: The Michigan Alumnus, Vol. XVII (November 1910). Ann Arbor, Michigan: The Alumni Association. P. 100.
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Necrology
University of Michigan
Graduates Literary Department
[Class of] 1889. Belva Mary Herron, B.L., d. at San Antonia [sic], Texas, March 4, 1911, aged 43. Buried at Mexico, Mo.
Source: The Michigan Alumnus, Vol. XVII (May 1911). Ann Arbor, Michigan: The Alumni Association. P. 496.
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University of Illinois, Alumni Record
*BELVA MARY HERRON
B.L., 1889, Univ. of Mich.; b. Sept. 23, 1866, Pittsburg, Pa.; d. John Fish (b. 1832, ibid.) & Rose (White) Herron (b. 1836, Montgomery Co., Mo.) Prepared in Jacksonville Acad., Ill. Honorary Fellowship, Univ. of Chicago, 1893-94; Fellowship, Univ. of Ill., 1904-05; Wilby prize for best work in Grad. Sch., Radcliffe Coll., 1904. Employment by Carnegie Inst. for writing history of labor laws in Ill., 1904. Teacher in Acad., Jacksonville, Ill., 1890; Asst. Instr., Adjust Prof. in Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Nebr., 1898-1903; Asst. in Wellesley Coll., 1903-04; Fellow in Econ., Univ. of Ill., 1904-5; Instr., do., 1905-6. Author: Progress of Labor Organization among Women. *Deceased.
Source: James Herbert Kelley, ed. The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois(Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois, 1913), p. 707.
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From Belva Mary Herron’s Last Will, May 22, 1909.
Note: Net value of her estate ca. $18,400. Promissory notes secured by mortgages on real estate in Montgomery and Audrain counties, Missouri.
$1200 total explicitly designated for the First Christian Churches of Mexico Missouri, Lincoln Nebraska, Ann Arbor Michigan and the Christian Women’s Board of Missions of the Christian Church. $100 to the General Board of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
[Following sums designated for specific individuals…] “The remainder of my estate (worth at the present time between $12000 and $13000) I will and bequeath to the Board of Home Missions of the Christian (Disciples) Church to be used preferably in building a church as settlement house some where in the middle west which might bear my mother’s name, Rose Herron Chapel.”
Source: Ancestry.com database on-line. Missouri. Probate Court (Audrain County); Probate Place: Audrain, Missouri.
Image Source: The Michiganensian, 1902, p. 285.