Partner Caroline Pratt
Helen
Marot (June 9, 1865 – June 3, 1940) was an American writer, librarian, and
labor organizer. She is best remembered for her efforts to address child labor
and improve the working conditions of women. She was from Philadelphia and
became active in investigating working conditions among children and women. As
a librarian, she worked at several important institutions and helped organize
the Free Library of Economics and Political Science in 1897. Marot was a
member of the Women's Trade Union League. She later organized the Bookkeepers,
Stenographers and Accountants Union in New York. In 1912, she was part of a
commission that investigated the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. She was an
active writer and her articles about the labor movement appeared in many
periodicals of the day.
Marot was born on June 9, 1865 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up
in an affluent family and received a Quaker education. From 1895 to 1896,
Marot was the literary editor of Ladies' Home Journal where she was
responsible for answering literary queries to the magazine. During this time,
she compiled a 288-page reader's guide containing over 5,000 books. Included
were some 170 author summaries.[1]
Marot left Ladies' Home Journal in April 1896 to organize the King
Library of the Church of the Redeemer in Andalusia, Pennsylvania. In September
1896 she worked as a librarian in Wilmington, Delaware as a cataloger. She
stayed at the library for three years. The head librarian at the time, Enos L.
Doan, remarked on her work: "She brought to it taste and literary
discrimination of a high order—qualities which, in addition to her thorough
technical training, gave her unusual efficiency in the performance of her
duties."[1]
In 1897 Marot, along with Dr. George M. Gould and Innes Forbes, opened a
private library specializing in works on social and economic topics. The Free
Library of Economics and Political Science concentrated on issues relating to
social and economic reform and was greatly influenced by The Fabian Society, a
socialist organization. It was located on the second floor of a department
store on Filbert Street in Philadelphia.
Six women including Mary Dreier, Ida Rauh, Helen Marot, Rena Borky, Yetta Raff, and Mary Effers link arms as they march to City Hall on December 3, 1909 during the New York shirtwaist strike to demand an end to abuse by police.
The Philadelphia Record described the library in its pages on June
15, 1897:
Philadelphia has been enriched with a library distinctively modern and
progressive in spirit... The new library forms an important supplement to
the municipal system, since the topics of the day and the problems of the
industrial and sociological world cannot be thoroughly followed by an
institution for the general circulation of books. With its proposed
technical classification of magazine literature and an accessible
collection of pamphlets and volumes, the Library of Economics should
become a powerful factor for civic and social education in the community
and Commonwealth.[2]
Marot explained the importance of the library in 1902: "It was founded on
the idea that freely offered opportunities from education in economics and
political science make directly for a more intelligent public opinion and a
higher citizenship."[2]
The collection included foreign and domestic literature. It consisted of
six hundred books, over two thousand pamphlets, and ninety-one periodicals.
This literature, more particularly the periodicals, was not found elsewhere
and thus met a most specific community need. The entire collection was donated
by individuals and various organizations such as American Academy of Political
and Social Science, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Church Social
Union, Civic Club of Philadelphia, Direct Legislation League,
Englishwoman's Review, Fabian Society, Humboldt Publishing Company,
Independent Labour Party, Indian Rights Association, Labor Exchange, and Land
Nationalization League, among others.
To keep up to date with current information, the library collected news
clippings and government publications, reports of labor societies, and other
similar works. Indeed, a considerable part of the collection consisted of
government, state, and municipal reports received from the United States
government, the different states, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and New
South Wales. Although the collection was small, teachers, students, and
library patrons found its classified and indexed pamphlets and magazine
literature concerning present-day problems to be satisfactory.
In addition, the patrons could purchase books and were permitted to check
out books when they were unable to come to the reading room during library
hours. The library was open daily from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Sunday,
until 10 p.m. The small library soon became "the center of liberal thought in
Philadelphia"—a popular gathering place for Philadelphian reformers and
socialists. In addition to the usual work of a special library, public and
private lectures and classes were given to different associations. Besides
being the chairwoman of the library committee, Marot was also on the lectures
committee, which were all well attended, the rooms being, in fact, more than
filled.
The first lecture addressed the topic of "The Economics of Socialism." It
was given free on October 30, 1897 by James R. MacDonald of the London Fabian
Society and future Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. At the second
meeting, on February 8, 1898, Professor Joseph French Johnson, Dr. Henry
Rogers Seager, Charles Richardson, and Professor William I. Hull discussed and
lectured on "Education in Economics." On March 19, 1898 a lecture on "Economic
Education, the Salvation of Society" was given by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton.
Through her library, Helen Marot participated in educating Philadelphians
to social changes and pursued the socialist cause for building a more just and
humane society with perseverance, courage, and a combination of hardheaded
realism and guileless romanticism.[2]
In 1899 she published A Handbook of Labor Literature and also
conducted and investigation for the U.S. Industrial Commission into working
conditions in the custom tailoring trades in Philadelphia. In 1902 Marot
investigated child labor in New York City for the Association of Neighborhood
Workers and helped form the New York Child Labor Committee. With Florence
Kelley and Josephine Clara Goldmark she drew up a report on child labor in the
city that influential in the passage of the 1903 Compulsory Education Act by
the state legislature.[1]
In 1906 Marot became executive secretary of the New York branch of the
national Women's Trade Union League. Marot also was responsible for creating
the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountants Union of New York. She was the
organizer and leader of the first great strike of shirtwaist makers and
dressmakers (1909–10) under the banner of the new International Ladies'
Garment Workers' Union.
In 1913, Marot resigned from her work with the trade union league. In 1914,
she published American Labor Unions (1914), a work on the syndicalist
Industrial Workers of the World. She then served on the editorial board of
The Masses (1916–17), a radical journal. After, she then served on the
staff of The Dial (1918–20). She was also a member of the U.S.
Industrial Relations Commission (1914–16).[1]
Helen Marot lived with her life partner, progressive educational reformer
Caroline
Pratt, until her death in on June 3, 1940, in New York, New York.
My published books:
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