Lucy Randolph Mason
Encyclopedia
Lucy Randolph Mason was an activist in the union movement
, the consumer movement
and the civil rights movement
in the mid-20th century.
Born near Alexandria, Virginia
in 1882, Mason vowed as a child to continue her family's long tradition of community service and commitment to human rights. Her father and grandfather were Episcopal ministers. She was also a fifth-generation descendant of George Mason
, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights
which served as the model for the Bill of Rights
in the U.S. Constitution.
Mason sought to bring about more humane conditions for working people, ending racial injustice and ensuring that union organizers throughout the South were guaranteed the constitutional rights to free speech, assembly and due process that George Mason had helped establish.
, where she had spent her childhood. While in her 20s, she supported herself by working as a stenographer but devoted much of her free time to volunteer social service work and political activities on behalf of women's suffrage. In 1914, the Richmond YWCA
offered her a job as its industrial secretary, a post she held until 1918, when she stepped down to care for her invalid father. In 1923, Mason resumed her post at the Richmond YWCA, working there until 1932.
During this period, Mason stimulated YWCA involvement with economic advancement in the African American community, and she generated public support for state labor laws that would ensure safer workplaces, end child labor
, raise minimum wage
s and shorten work hours. Mason also traveled throughout the South promoting voluntary employer agreements that incorporated fair labor standards. To aid in this effort, she wrote Standards for Workers in Southern Industry (1931), the first pamphlet of its kind. Mason relied on consumer pressure to raise labor standards as well.
She belonged to the Union Label League
in Richmond and was a frequent speaker to community and labor groups about the importance of buying union-made products and services. During World War I, American Federation of Labor
(AFL) President Samuel Gompers
appointed Mason as the Virginia chairwoman of the Women in Industry Committee, a division of the wartime National Advisory Committee on Labor.
In 1932, Mason succeeded Florence Kelley
as the general secretary of the National Consumers League
(NCL), the leading national advocate of fair labor standards. From the 1900s to the 1930s, the NCL worked to pass protective labor laws and to convince consumers to buy only goods and services produced by workers who enjoyed a living wage and decent working conditions. Under Mason, the NCL won the passage of new state labor laws, lobbied for improved labor codes in the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act
and helped ensure the passage of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA).
(CIO) President John L. Lewis
, who helped arrange a job for her as the CIO's public relations representative for the South. In July 1937, at age 55, Mason moved into the Textile Workers Organizing Committee offices in Atlanta, and became the CIO's "roving ambassador" for the next 16 years.
For Mason, the CIO was "a training ground for citizenship" for Southern workers, a vehicle "to bring democracy to the South" and the means to alleviate the economic and racial injustices experienced by minorities and the poor. Mason traveled alone to small towns where union organizers and their sympathizers had been shot, beaten, threatened and jailed. She cornered hostile sheriffs, judges, newspaper editors, politicians and ministers, explaining workers' rights to organize and bargain under the new federal statutes and promoting an understanding of the need for unions.
She was known by friend and foe as "Miss Lucy." Her social status as a Southern lady and the daughter of an old, respected Virginia family often gained her access to political and community leaders when others were denied. Miss Lucy's success also rested on her blunt speech, her calm yet steely demeanor and her ability to bring civil liberties violations to the attention of federal officials, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt
. Mason convinced Roosevelt to send a special federal investigator to Memphis in 1940, for example, in the wake of physical attacks on the United Rubber Workers' organizers who were trying to create an interracial union.
After 1944, Mason worked with the CIO Political Action Committee in the South, helping to register union members, black and white, and working for the elimination of the poll tax
. She also forged lasting links between labor and religious groups. She helped get the Southern Baptist Convention
to adopt a resolution in 1938 recognizing "the right of labor to organize and engage in collective bargaining to the end that labor may have a fair and living wage, such as will provide not only the necessities of life, but for recreation, pleasure, and culture."
In the 1940s, she organized interfaith, multi-union and interracial groups in Atlanta and other Southern cities of workers dedicated to building bridges between organized labor and the churches. Eventually, these local groups formed the National Religion and Labor Foundation.
In 1953, due to ill health, Mason retired from active union work. She completed her autobiography, To Win These Rights, in 1952. That same year, she was honored with the Social Justice Award from the National Religion and Labor Foundation. She died in 1959 in Atlanta.
Union Movement
The Union Movement was a right-wing political party founded in Britain by Oswald Mosley. Where Mosley had previously been associated with a peculiarly British form of fascism, the Union Movement attempted to redefine the concept by stressing the importance of developing a European nationalism...
, the consumer movement
Consumer activism
Consumer activism is activism undertaken on behalf of consumers, to assert consumer rights.-Objectives and tactics:Goals include making goods and services available to consumers safer, better quality, environmentally friendly, and more readily available....
and the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
in the mid-20th century.
Born near Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
in 1882, Mason vowed as a child to continue her family's long tradition of community service and commitment to human rights. Her father and grandfather were Episcopal ministers. She was also a fifth-generation descendant of George Mason
George Mason
George Mason IV was an American Patriot, statesman and a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention...
, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights
Virginia Declaration of Rights
The Virginia Declaration of Rights is a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to rebel against "inadequate" government...
which served as the model for the Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
in the U.S. Constitution.
Mason sought to bring about more humane conditions for working people, ending racial injustice and ensuring that union organizers throughout the South were guaranteed the constitutional rights to free speech, assembly and due process that George Mason had helped establish.
Early years
She began her social reform work in Richmond, VirginiaRichmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, where she had spent her childhood. While in her 20s, she supported herself by working as a stenographer but devoted much of her free time to volunteer social service work and political activities on behalf of women's suffrage. In 1914, the Richmond YWCA
YWCA
The YWCA USA is the United States branch of a women's membership movement that strives to create opportunities for women's growth, leadership and power in order to attain a common vision—to eliminate racism and empower women. The YWCA is a non-profit organization, the first of which was founded in...
offered her a job as its industrial secretary, a post she held until 1918, when she stepped down to care for her invalid father. In 1923, Mason resumed her post at the Richmond YWCA, working there until 1932.
During this period, Mason stimulated YWCA involvement with economic advancement in the African American community, and she generated public support for state labor laws that would ensure safer workplaces, end child labor
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
, raise minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
s and shorten work hours. Mason also traveled throughout the South promoting voluntary employer agreements that incorporated fair labor standards. To aid in this effort, she wrote Standards for Workers in Southern Industry (1931), the first pamphlet of its kind. Mason relied on consumer pressure to raise labor standards as well.
She belonged to the Union Label League
Union Label Department, AFL-CIO
The Union Label and Service Trades Department, AFL-CIO was founded on April 12, 1909, to promote the products and services produced in America by trade union members—especially those products and services identified by a union label, shop card, store card and/or service button...
in Richmond and was a frequent speaker to community and labor groups about the importance of buying union-made products and services. During World War I, American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL) President Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
appointed Mason as the Virginia chairwoman of the Women in Industry Committee, a division of the wartime National Advisory Committee on Labor.
In 1932, Mason succeeded Florence Kelley
Florence Kelley
Florence Kelley was an American social and political reformer. Her work against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and children's rights is widely regarded today.-Family:...
as the general secretary of the National Consumers League
National Consumers League
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is an American consumer organization. The National Consumers League is a private, nonprofit advocacy group representing consumers on marketplace and workplace issues....
(NCL), the leading national advocate of fair labor standards. From the 1900s to the 1930s, the NCL worked to pass protective labor laws and to convince consumers to buy only goods and services produced by workers who enjoyed a living wage and decent working conditions. Under Mason, the NCL won the passage of new state labor laws, lobbied for improved labor codes in the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act
National Industrial Recovery Act
The National Industrial Recovery Act , officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), officially known as the Act of June 16, 1933 (Ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195, formerly...
and helped ensure the passage of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act
Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is a federal statute of the United States. The FLSA established a national minimum wage, guaranteed 'time-and-a-half' for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor," a term that is defined in the statute...
(FLSA).
The South and the CIO
During congressional hearings on the FLSA, Mason met Congress of Industrial OrganizationsCongress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) President John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
, who helped arrange a job for her as the CIO's public relations representative for the South. In July 1937, at age 55, Mason moved into the Textile Workers Organizing Committee offices in Atlanta, and became the CIO's "roving ambassador" for the next 16 years.
For Mason, the CIO was "a training ground for citizenship" for Southern workers, a vehicle "to bring democracy to the South" and the means to alleviate the economic and racial injustices experienced by minorities and the poor. Mason traveled alone to small towns where union organizers and their sympathizers had been shot, beaten, threatened and jailed. She cornered hostile sheriffs, judges, newspaper editors, politicians and ministers, explaining workers' rights to organize and bargain under the new federal statutes and promoting an understanding of the need for unions.
She was known by friend and foe as "Miss Lucy." Her social status as a Southern lady and the daughter of an old, respected Virginia family often gained her access to political and community leaders when others were denied. Miss Lucy's success also rested on her blunt speech, her calm yet steely demeanor and her ability to bring civil liberties violations to the attention of federal officials, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. Mason convinced Roosevelt to send a special federal investigator to Memphis in 1940, for example, in the wake of physical attacks on the United Rubber Workers' organizers who were trying to create an interracial union.
After 1944, Mason worked with the CIO Political Action Committee in the South, helping to register union members, black and white, and working for the elimination of the poll tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
. She also forged lasting links between labor and religious groups. She helped get the Southern Baptist Convention
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
to adopt a resolution in 1938 recognizing "the right of labor to organize and engage in collective bargaining to the end that labor may have a fair and living wage, such as will provide not only the necessities of life, but for recreation, pleasure, and culture."
In the 1940s, she organized interfaith, multi-union and interracial groups in Atlanta and other Southern cities of workers dedicated to building bridges between organized labor and the churches. Eventually, these local groups formed the National Religion and Labor Foundation.
In 1953, due to ill health, Mason retired from active union work. She completed her autobiography, To Win These Rights, in 1952. That same year, she was honored with the Social Justice Award from the National Religion and Labor Foundation. She died in 1959 in Atlanta.