The League of Women Shoppers (LWS, Grantee 1936–1941) was founded in 1935 in New York City by a group of progressive women who believed that consumer power could be a force for social change. Their motto, “Use Your Buying Power for Justice,” captured their approach: organize middle and upper-class women to boycott businesses that exploited their workers, picket department stores, and pressure employers to recognize unions and improve working conditions. By 1939, at the height of its popularity, LWS had 25,000 members in 14 cities across the United States.

LWS’s campaigns targeted some of the most visible labor injustices of the era. They boycotted Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime stores for insufficient wages and long hours, published investigations into the conditions of laundry workers and domestic workers who were predominantly Black women, and were early advocates for racial equality in the workplace, documenting discriminatory wages and conditions and supporting Black workers’ right to organize. LWS dissolved in 1948 after being branded a communist group for supporting unions and racial equality; nonetheless, they helped to advance cross-class, multiracial coalition building that the Assistance Fund would go on to support for decades.

Media:

• Chicago Journal of History, Issue 6, Spring 2016: Use Your Buying Power for Justice: The League of Women Shoppers and Innocuous Feminist Radicalism 1935–1948