1953 Union Membership Meeting of Local 6 at Manhattan Center.

Shortly before her death in 1953 and just 14 years after the first contract was signed, Local 6 Secretary-Treasurer Gertrude Lane addresses a membership meeting that filled Manhattan Center, one of New York City’s largest meeting halls, to overflowing. The mixture of white shirts in the photograph probably indicates how many people came directly from work and provides a striking color contrast. Note the empty front row seats in the standing room-only hall.

From the pamphlet, “The Story of the First Contract”, published by the Hotel and Motel Trades Council of New York in 1972 on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its first labor agreement covering New York City’s hotel workers.

See this image in the Labor Pains – The Birth of a Contract exhibit.

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1940s-1950s