Although only a few clothing factories still operate in this area, Harrison and Kneeland streets were once the center of the New England ready-made clothing industry. The WPA Federal Writers’ Guide said that on “warm days the hum of hundreds of sewing machines can be heard through the open windows.” In 1936, the winter after the National Labor Relations Act gave workers the right to organize, hundreds of women garment workers joined a strike supported by the ILGWU and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers that lasted two months. In April they won a closed shop, a forty-hour week (instead of fifty-two hours), and an increased minimum wage.
