This book is the first full length history of the all-female National Federation of Women Workers (1906-21) led by the gifted and charismatic Mary Macarthur. Its focus is on the people who made up this pioneering union - the organisers, activists and members who built branches and struggled to improve the lives of Britain's working women.

Cathy Hunt is a Senior Lecturer for History at Coventry University, UK. Her research to date has focused on the roles of women in the British labour movement in the first half of the twentieth century, with particular interest on grassroots trade union membership and municipal politics.