Today, Labor Day is the welcome but somewhat unappreciated focal point for a long weekend. Like most holidays, though, it was hard-won after decades of determined, often dangerous and sometimes fatal work by laborers who fought for better working conditions in industries across the country.
One of the more under-recognized leaders of the nascent labor movement was Troy’s Kate Mullany.
Troy wouldn’t be known as the Collar City without the work of women like Mullany. She was one of about 3,700 women working in Troy’s collar industry, which produced about 90% of the nation’s detachable shirt collars at its height in the 1860s. She and her colleagues worked 14-hour days in oppressive heat and under hazardous conditions for as little as $3 a week…