Immigrant History | Immigrant Stories | Multicultural

Women at Work: Industries Shaped by Immigrant Women

March 26, 2026 by

This week at the Reher Center we commemorated the 115th anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire of 1911. The blaze took the lives of 146 workers, most of them Jewish and Italian immigrants and mostly women and girls. To honor the victims of the factory owners’ willful negligence—who locked the doors on the ninth floor, contributing to preventable loss of life—we gathered to read aloud the names of those who died and to reaffirm our commitment to remember. In front of the Center on Broadway, those gathered created sidewalk chalkings: an ephemeral memorial that will fade, reminding us that we must return to this history so it doesn’t fade.

The Triangle Factory fire is both the story of a dangerous, life-taking workplace and a catalyst for galvanizing labor organizing and ushering in labor reforms, fire codes, and more workplace oversight. We mourn those who died that March day in 1911 and we remember to fight for, and recognize, the living. 

Immigrant women, like those at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, have long powered the industries that make everyday life possible. From the looms of early textile mills to today’s classrooms and hospitals, their labor has shaped the rhythms of American life, often without recognition, fair pay, or public credit. These women stitched the nation’s clothing, fed its cities, and sustained families and communities while navigating systems that consistently undervalued their work.

Their stories stretch across centuries, industries, and borders, forming a throughline of skill, determination, and collective resilience. To understand American labor history without immigrant women is to miss its beating heart.

Working at the Heart of Industrialization

The rise of American industry is inseparable from the labor of immigrant women. During the 19th century, textile mills and garment factories spread across the Northeast and Midwest, drawing women from Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe, and beyond. In places like Lowell, Massachusetts, New York City’s garment district, and Kingston, NY, women worked long hours producing goods for a rapidly expanding national market.

Employees at the Fuller Shirt Company (1952) John Matthews Collection, courtesy of Scott Dutton

For many, factory work offered one of the few avenues for waged employment outside the home. That opportunity came with limits: low pay, unsafe conditions, and strict oversight. As the garment industry expanded into the 20th century, Chinese immigrant women and later Latina workers became central to production, particularly in urban sweatshops tied to fast-growing consumer demand.

Immigrant women were not only laborers in these industries, they were also organizers. Facing exploitation, they helped lead strikes and union campaigns that reshaped labor standards and challenged the idea that industrial work should come at the cost of dignity or safety. Their legacy reminds us that behind every garment is both skilled labor and collective action.

Cities, Growth, and Gendered Labor

As American cities swelled with new arrivals, immigrant women became essential to urban economies. Their work was shaped not by inherent aptitude, but by gendered and racialized expectations that limited access to higher-paying or protected jobs. Tasks associated with care, precision, or service were labeled “women’s work,” even when they required significant physical endurance, technical skill, and emotional labor.

Despite lower wages and fewer protections, immigrant women’s earnings often supported entire households. Their labor sustained families and neighborhoods, helping cities grow not only economically, but socially through dense networks of kinship, mutual aid, and cultural life.

Strike pickets (1910) Bains News Service, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Domestic Labor and the Care Economy

Domestic service was one of the most accessible forms of paid work for immigrant women in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Irish immigrant women, in particular, filled homes as cooks, cleaners, and caregivers, performing demanding labor that took place largely out of public view and beyond the reach of most labor protections.

Domestic workers kept households running, freeing middle- and upper-class families to pursue professional and public lives. Yet their labor was rarely protected by labor laws and their presence was often treated as invisible.

The household staff (probably Swedish) for one family in Black River Falls, Wisconsin (ca. 1890) Photographer Charles Van Schaick, Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society

This work enabled middle- and upper-class households to pursue professional and public lives, even as domestic workers themselves remained excluded from basic workplace rights. That exclusion has had lasting consequences.

Today, immigrant women remain central to caregiving professions, including home health care, childcare, and elder care. Approximately 1.9 million immigrant women work in caregiving roles, supporting children, people with disabilities, and aging adults. These jobs form the backbone of the care economy, not because women are naturally suited to them, but because economic necessity and structural barriers continue to funnel immigrant women into undervalued labor.

Food, Hospitality, and Agriculture

Migrant Kitchens, Portraits and Short Films, from the Margins, photo by Sarah K. Khan, courtesy of the Queens Museum

Food and hospitality have long served as entry points into American labor markets. Immigrant women have worked in canneries, food processing plants, restaurants, hotels, and agricultural fields, as well as in family-run grocery stores and eateries where paid labor often blended with domestic responsibility.

Today, immigrant women continue to shape how America eats and gathers. From restaurant kitchens to hotel housekeeping and catering companies, their labor feeds cities, sustains tourism, and carries cultural knowledge across generations. Family businesses, in particular, turn food into both livelihood and cultural expression–adapting recipes, ingredients, and traditions to new places and audiences.

Beyond the Familiar Narratives

While garment and care work dominate popular narratives, immigrant women’s labor has always extended beyond these sectors. During World War I and World War II, women entered industrial jobs previously closed to them, working in manufacturing, chemical plants, and production lines as labor demands shifted. These moments challenged assumptions about who could perform industrial work, even when those gains proved temporary.

The girl on the land serves the nation's need by Edward Penfield (1918) Library of Congress

Today, immigrant women continue to work across manufacturing and logistics sectors that sustain global supply chains. These jobs provide essential income, but often come with limited job security and exposure to unsafe conditions, continuing patterns established generations earlier.

Health and Education: Nurturing Bodies and Minds

Illustration of medical students attending a lecture at the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, founded by Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell (1870) from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Library of Congress

Immigrant women have also played a vital role in caring for bodies and shaping minds. Historically, trailblazers like Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician in the United States and an immigrant herself, opened doors for women in medicine and education. Her achievements challenged both gender and national boundaries, setting precedents that would take generations to expand.

Today, healthcare and education are among the top industries employing immigrant women. Approximately 2.7 million immigrant women work in healthcare roles, ranging from home health aides and nursing assistants to registered nurses, technicians, and physicians. In schools, immigrant women serve as teachers, aides, counselors, and support staff, often working in under-resourced districts where their linguistic and cultural knowledge is invaluable.

Work, Leadership, and the Present Day

Through entrepreneurship, immigrant women have created businesses that anchor neighborhoods, generate jobs, and provide services often overlooked by mainstream institutions. For many, entrepreneurship offers a path to autonomy in an economy where advancement is otherwise constrained.


Entrepreneur Selmy Jimenez from Ecuador, IOM 2023 / Ramiro Aguilar Villamarín

Today, immigrant women make up approximately 16.3% of employed women in the United States. They are especially concentrated in healthcare, education, food service, caregiving, and manufacturing: sectors that sustain daily life and prove critical during times of crisis. Many are primary or co-breadwinners, balancing paid labor with unpaid care while navigating wage gaps, credential barriers, and occupational segregation.

Carrying the Work Forward

From the mills and kitchens of the past to the clinics, classrooms, and care facilities of today, immigrant women have powered the industries that hold society together. Their labor is not a footnote to American history, it is foundational.

Recognizing these contributions means more than honoring the past. It invites us to engage with ongoing questions of labor justice, equity, and dignity. It challenges us to see care, craft, and community-building as skilled work worthy of protection and respect.

Immigrant women have always been here working, organizing, nurturing, and leading. Their stories remind us that resilience is built collectively and that the work sustaining our communities has always crossed borders.