The final decade of the nineteenth century witnessed two important developments in attitudes towards the organisation of working-class women. The rise of New Unionism among unskilled and casual workers brought many women into trade unions where they received their first taste of public work. In unions they united with other working-class women but often found that their first battles were fought not against capitalist employers but against male trade unionists fearful of the whole idea of women's employment. Simultaneously, increasing public concern about sweated female labour encouraged many upper- and middle-class feminists to act to improve the lot of working women. Their heavily gendered approach, usefully described as ‘social feminist’, believed that women (often from upper- or middle-class backgrounds) were best suited to solving the problems of working-class women. Social feminists used the techniques of investigation and publicity. Their campaigns aimed at small-scale reform and they avoided the larger economic critiques of New Unionism. Yet, faced with strong hostility from male unionists, many women workers found a sympathetic hearing from social feminists. Consequently, despite their solidly working-class membership, early women's unions were often based on alliances of gender rather than on those of class.

Women's unionisation did not progress equally throughout Britain, but neither did women's work patterns. As Jane Lewis has identified, there was no universal increase in female labour before the First World War. The particular areas where women did form a mass female workforce within a dominant local industry such as the Lancashire textile factories or the Leicester hosiery trade have received much historical attention. However, such large concentrations of women appear exceptional when compared with other urban centres such as London, Birmingham or the Potteries. Here, women were restricted to particular trades within industries or remained as outworkers in small units or their own homes. Unionisation was patchy in such districts, to say the least.

Against this overview, Liverpool appears less exceptional although very different from northern Lancashire. Unlike the cotton towns, women are barely visible in Liverpool's trade union history. The city lacked a solid manufacturing base, and there were no large factories on hand.