This documentary was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature, losing to Who Are the DeBolts and Where Did They Get Nineteen Children? There will be spoilers ahead:
This documentary details the experiences of three women who were active in the labor union movement in the 1930s. The three women-Kate, Stella and Sylvia-were active in Chicago in separate industries and worked to organize unions in their various workplaces/industries. They talk about the problems they had with employers, reluctant or frightened workers and even with the unions themselves because they were often unskilled labor or because they were women when unions were dominated by men.
One of the women, Kate, is a die-hard socialist, even in the interviews conducted in the 1970s, she's firmly and proudly a socialist. Stella talks about her current connections to the women's movement. Sylvia talks about her father being in a union and telling her that, whatever work she ends up doing, if she has an opportunity to join a union, she should, because any union is better than no union.
The documentary intersperses interview segments with still photos and archival footage with music from the likes of Pete Seegar and Arlo Guthrie, as well as a recording of "Sweet Home Chicago". The archival footage lends context to the interviews. If there's a serious problem with this, at least for me, it's a bit short. I'd have liked it to be longer. But that's a minor nitpick.
This film deserves to be more widely known. Recommended.
This documentary details the experiences of three women who were active in the labor union movement in the 1930s. The three women-Kate, Stella and Sylvia-were active in Chicago in separate industries and worked to organize unions in their various workplaces/industries. They talk about the problems they had with employers, reluctant or frightened workers and even with the unions themselves because they were often unskilled labor or because they were women when unions were dominated by men.
One of the women, Kate, is a die-hard socialist, even in the interviews conducted in the 1970s, she's firmly and proudly a socialist. Stella talks about her current connections to the women's movement. Sylvia talks about her father being in a union and telling her that, whatever work she ends up doing, if she has an opportunity to join a union, she should, because any union is better than no union.
The documentary intersperses interview segments with still photos and archival footage with music from the likes of Pete Seegar and Arlo Guthrie, as well as a recording of "Sweet Home Chicago". The archival footage lends context to the interviews. If there's a serious problem with this, at least for me, it's a bit short. I'd have liked it to be longer. But that's a minor nitpick.
This film deserves to be more widely known. Recommended.