they helped organize the Working Women’s Society. Its objectives were “to found trades’ organizations in trades where they at present do not exist, and to encourage and assist labor organizations to the end of increasing wages and shortening hours”. At this time, Louise Perkins, a women’s activist and philanthropist, had taken interest in O’Reilly’s work, inviting her to membership in New York’s Social Reform Club as this group would often speak on the contemporary issues surrounding the political economy. Only with the financial support of elite women such as Louise Perkins was O'Reilly able to give up manual labor and become a full-time labor organizer with the Women's Trade Union League. O’Reilly organized the local women’s United Garment Workers of America in 1897. In 1903, O’Reilly joined the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) which sought to bring women into labor unions. In 1903, she served as the WTUL vice-president. The Women’s Trade Union League included working class women and also those from middle and upper-class families. WTUL also was open to women of all ethnic backgrounds as their diverse membership included Italian, Eastern European Jewish, and Irish women. The WTUL reported in the year between 1908 and 1909, O'Reilly had officially given 32 speeches credited to her name alone, while between 1909 and 1913, reports suggest she gave speeches nearly every day. O'Reilly advocated to bring women to the vote, where they would gain independence and confidence men often thought they lacked. Suffrage was essential to better working conditions, such as abolishing sweatshops, raising wages, reducing work hours and helping them unionize. “Behind suffrage” Leonora wrote, “is the demand for equal pay for equal work” and that women workers would cease to be a threat to union men’s wage scales once they gained the vote. As a WTUL organizer, and the vice president of New York city’s WTUL she helped organize the 1909 New York city strike nicknamed the uprising of the 20,000, by raising money to support strikers, urging boycotts of firms being struck, and organizing mass protests. She also galvanized protests following the Triangle factory fire of 1911, by using the tragedy to build support for factory safety reforms. Because the WTUL consisted of working-class individuals who lacked education and money, they were unable to organize effectively without the aid of powerful allies. Thus, the league was dominated by affluent middle-class women who were educated, had financial ability