Education and Consciousness-Raising
The ILGWU locals in Texas offered many forms of education to workers. In 1917, the International started the Education Department and ILGWU locals began to have educational directors who ran classes and events, so the ILGWU’s educational practices were well-established when Texas locals began to organize in the 1930s (The Kheel Center). This ILGWU brochure was created by the Educational department to advertise some of the common classes and activities, including sports, dancing, music, literature, and trade union training. While these were the most common, the exact classes and activities varied between locals. For example, in newsletters from the Houston ILGWU local, there are notices for choral club meetings, a knitting and crochet circle, and violin lessons for workers’ kids run by the educational department (Ladies’ Garment Worker).
Classes that ILGWU locals put on were often aimed at teaching life skills and educating workers about their union. Locals put on classes about budgeting, economics, and how unions worked (Allen), and leaders used platforms like union newsletters for education articles like “Why We Pay Dues in Slack Seasons” (Ladies’ Garment Worker). The International supported these classes by providing educational materials, like this pamphlet that guides teachers on how to teach economics, and publication lists of pamphlets, songs, films and plays in many languages that locals could order (“Publication List”). The International also ran summer schools like the Southern Summer School for Workers that provided summer school classes on union education (“Workers’ Education”, 5-6). All of the ILGWU educational efforts, both fun and professional, were meant to improve the lives of workers, bring in new members who went to classes with their friends, and teach workers about what it meant to be a good worker and a good unionist. The union education in particular is a form of consciousness-raising, which the NOW Guidelines For Feminist Consciousness-raising defines as increasing people’s awareness of their place in society so they can question their behavior (2). The ILGWU classes helped garment workers understand how their work fit into the industry, like how this pamphlet describes the connections between garment work and banking. Once they understood that, workers would have a better idea of why and when they should strike to make themselves heard.
These classes could have been a great resource for socialization and consciousness-raising for the San Antonio garment workers and the rest of the Mexican American community. Unfortunately, while there are records of some educational work by the San Antonio ILWGU, there is no evidence that it held classes about unionism. In interviews about the union, the educational director, Elizabeth Taylor, and organizer Myrle Zappone mentioned classes in English, writing (Interview with Mrs. Myrle Zappone), and painting, as well as summer camps, and weekend outings (Heild, 69). There is also an announcement in this newspaper article about dance lessons that the ILGWU hosted in 1938, which also mentioned English classes. Unfortunately, there aren’t any records of education about labor unions, though it’s hard to know if that’s because records weren’t saved or because Taylor didn’t have those classes. International-backed education was a source of consciousness-raising in many other ILGWU locals, but it doesn't appear that it was in San Antonio.