DescriptionThis thesis investigates the local movement of household workers in New York from 1960-1980. Adding to labor and feminist histories that challenge the notion of domestic workers as “unorganizable,” this thesis provides an account of the Household Technicians of New York, an organization created and run by working-class Black women in New York. These women fought to gain decent pay and benefits for their labor, and dignity and respect as household workers. With the use of meeting notes, recordings, correspondences, and publications, as well as secondary sources, this thesis examines the vision of the Household Technicians of New York, within the context of the larger national movement of household workers in the 1960s and 1970s. This study pays particular attention to tensions within the movement of household workers and to the efforts to find allies, two topics which have yet to be fully explored in previous scholarly literature on domestic worker organizing. This thesis finds that the Household Technicians of New York saw an alliance with women’s movement, largely middle class white women, as central to redefining household work. At the same time, the larger women’s movement was trying to find ways to get women out of the household all together. Rather than focus on the civil rights movement or labor movement, household workers made a strategic choice to focus on the women’s movement. Through this alliance, they hoped to create a coalition of household workers and employers. While the women’s movement did have brief moments when it worked with household workers, ultimately, white feminists were unable to see Black household workers as a part of their vision for liberation.