ILGWU Unity House Audio-Visual Materials, 1983-1998
Collection Number: 5780/122 AV

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States founded in 1900 by local union delegates representing about 2,000 members in cities in the northeastern United States. It was one of the first U.S. Unions to have a membership consisting of mostly females, and it played a key role in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union is generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG". The ILGWU grew in geographical scope, membership size, and political influence to become one of the most powerful forces in American organized labor by mid-century. Representing workers in the women's garment industry, the ILGWU worked to improve working and living conditions of its members through collective bargaining agreements, training programs, health care facilities, cooperative housing, educational opportunities, and other efforts. The ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995 to form the Union of Needle trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented only 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.

Unity House was a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, operated by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and used as a vacation destination and educational center for its members and their families. It was purchased by Locals 22 and 25 in 1919, and consisted of a lake and 750 acres of land. In the 1920s the locals sold the resort to the international organization. Unity House prospered after World War II, but attendance dropped throughout the 1960s and continued to dwindle in the 1970s and 1980s. The ILGWU closed the resort in 1990. In 2000 it was purchased by a subgrantee of the Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts.

Unity House not only served as a vacation spot for ILGers and their families, but also as a meeting place for ILGWU officers and staff and other labor leaders. In this way, the resort was very much the outgrowth of Unity Houses and Unity Centers in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. In these cities, local unions established libraries, educational offerings, and recreational activities, hosted at local schools. With the establishment of the international's Educational Department in New York City that worked in cooperation with local union members, programs became increasingly robust. Such offerings that appealed to members' interests beyond the so-called "bread and butter" issues characterized the ILGWU's approach to organizing and building a union. Though Unity House in the Poconos was sold in 1989 and closed a year later, the ILGWU's educational programs for members and their families continued in earnest until the union's merger with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1995.

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ILGWU Unity House Audio-Visual Materials #5780/122 AV. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.

Related Collections: 5780/122: ILGWU Unity House Records 5780/122 MB: ILGWU Unity House Memorabilia 5780/122 P: ILGWU Unity House Photographs