The Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, which has served Boston women continuously for nearly 130 years, was at two different sites on Boylston Street for sixty years. In 2004, WEIU renamed itself the Women’s Union and moved downtown from this site to One Washington Mall. In 2006,it merged with Crittenton, a Boston-based housing and workforce development agency established in 1824 to form Crittenton Women’s Union, now EMPath. WEIU’s first program was a shop selling women’s crafts and food, but it rapidly moved into job training, placement, and protection of women workers. In recent years it instituted training for licensed home day care providers and created a transitional housing programs for single mothers. Dr. Harriet Clisby (1831-1931) founded the WEIU together with a group of prominent Boston women. Mary Morton Kehew (1859-1919) led the union from 1892 until her death. Under her direction, the union continued to offer vocational training but also lobbied for legislation to protect women workers. She supported her arguments with solid social science research. Kehew was active in the programs at Denison House (see C12) and worked to foster trade unions among women workers, becoming the first president of the National Women’s Trade Union League organized in Boston in 1903.
