Donnelly Garment Company

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Photograph of the sewing department at The Donnelly Garment Company in the Corrigan Building at 1828 Walnut, Kansas City, Missouri.

Photograph of The Donnelly Garment Company 1935 Christmas Party, hosted by Nell Donnelly Reed.

Photograph of a police officers restraining protesters at a demonstration on March 17, 1937 by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. This image was captured outside of the Gordon Brothers Garment Company, Gernes Garment Company, and Missouri Garment Company building at 2617 Grand Avenue (now Grand Boulevard), Kansas City, Missouri.

Production statistics for the Donnelly Garment Company for the calender years 1936 through 1938. During these three years, the company produced 5,178,474 articles of clothing worth a total of $16,375,096.67.

Meyer Perlstein's affidavit in Equity Case No. 2924: Donnelly Garment Company and Donnelly Garment Sales Company, Plaintiffs, vs. International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and all members of said union as defendants in this class action.

An excerpt of the examination of Elizabeth Gates Reeves by Senator James A. Reed. Reeves, an employee of the Donnelly Garment Company, is shown a series of 27 photographs by Reed and is asked to describe details about the pictures.

Fern Sigler's affidavit in Equity Case No. 2924: Donnelly Garment Company and Donnelly Garment Sales Company, Plaintiffs, vs. International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and all members of said union as defendants in this class action.

Photograph of the sewing department at The Donnelly Garment Company in the Corrigan Building at 1828 Walnut, Kansas City, Missouri.

Photograph of a Christmas party given by the employees of the Donnelly Garment Company in honor of David Donnelly at the Kansas City Community Church on December 23rd, 1932.

Donnelly Garment Company interior

The history of the Donnelly Garment Company and its battle with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) is one that defies conventional understandings of American life in the Great Depression. It is a story of a female entrepreneur succeeding in an era of economic paralysis, and one of a union failing to organize a factory in a period when workers won substantive rights. ILGWU president David Dubinsky, Nell Donnelly Reed, and Senator James A. Reed were the principal figures in a contest to organize a single garment factory, a legal battle that came to represent much larger questions.

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