Records of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, 1894-1955

The Women's Educational and Industrial Union (Boston, Massachusetts), a non-profit social and educational agency, was founded in 1877 by Dr. Harriet Clisby, and incorporated in 1880, "to increase fellowship among women and to promote the best practical methods for securing their educational, industrial and social advancement." In order to accomplish this mission, the organization was arranged in committees or departments which throughout its history provided education and job placement services for women, social services for the needy, social programs for members, and operated a number of retail shops. These departments continued to evolve as different needs arose. In its early years, the organization gave practical help and provided training programs to and for women, teaching them how to produce marketable goods and selling their products at the Union's Handwork Shop, one of its early retail shops. Among the social services offered were legal aid for needy women (especially domestics); lunches for schools in the city of Boston; and training and placement for women, the adult blind, and other handicapped.

An early Committee on Hygiene, which provided health education and free medical treatment to women, later became the Committee on Sanitary and Industrial Conditions (investigating conditions of work in shops and industry) and still later, the Research Department. The early Employment Bureau, which began by investigating fraudulent advertisements offering lucrative work to women at home and by providing job placement services to both professional women and domestics, split into the Emergency Employment Bureau (offering placement services for cooks, laundresses, housekeepers, etc., who could only accept day work), and the Appointment Bureau (offering career counseling and placement services in business and the professions). The Emergency Appointment Bureau was reorganized as Homemaker Services, which offered household services to the chronically ill and to those with medical emergencies, and the new Career Services continued in the same vein as the Appointment Bureau. The Union's retail shops, which in the early years consisted of a tea room, lunch room, food shop, and handwork shop, expanded over time to include a children's book shop, stationery shop, needlework shop, children's shop, printing shop, magazine shop, and gift shop, among others. Profits from the Union shops were used to maintain social service and other programs until they closed in 2004.

More recent programs offered by the Social Services Department included Companions Unlimited, a volunteer program to help the elderly and handicapped of all ages; Mini Mart, a member food co-op for the elderly and handicapped offered as part of Companions Unlimited; Parent Aides, a mentoring service for young single mothers; Horizons Transitional Housing Program, a temporary housing program for battered and homeless women and their children; Family Day Care; and the department's nursing home guide, whose title has varied over the years. Other departments included Homemaker Services, Career Services, and Member Services, which offered a daytime lecture series, classes, tours and special events, and the After Five program, providing lectures on issues of current interest for young men and women. Rockport Lodge, a vacation home for low- to moderate-income women, and the Women's Rest Tour Association, now known as the Traveler's Information Exchange (a network collecting information about travel for women), were associated with the Union, as was the Industrial Credit Union, which was started by a group of Union women in 1910. The Union was supported by membership dues, donations and gifts, grants, and in part by its shops. In 2002, the Union changed its name to the Women's Union, and in 2004 sold its buildings, dedicating the income from their sales to future programs. In July 2006 the Union merged with Crittenton to become the Crittenton Women's Union, dedicated to transforming "the course of low-income women's lives so that they can attain economic independence and create better futures for themselves and their families."