They Came to Scoff, But Stayed to Peel Onions: Reproductive Labor and Collective Action in the 1936-1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike

Abstract

The story of the United Automobile Workers' (UAW) first major strike-against General Motors in Flint, Michigan during the winter of 1936-1937-has been well told. The contribution of the UAW's first women's auxiliary-and that of its more militant arm, the Women's Emergency Brigade-is less well known. Studying the creation, activism, and goals of the women's auxiliary and Emergency Brigade not only restores women to early histories of the UAW, but also challenges our understanding of working-class women's activism in the early twentieth century and the vocabulary we use to describe that activism. Without the women's auxiliary and Emergency Brigade, the UAW would not have succeeded in its first-and most impressive-organizational victory.