Thanks to a private tour from historian P. Thomas Carroll, Jolene DiBrango spent a recent afternoon learning what it might have been like to live in Troy in the late 19th century.

The home’s top floor looks much like it probably did in the 1800s when it was home to Kate Mullany, a pivotal but largely unheralded figure in state and women’s history.

“To see how modestly she was living, it is just an incredible thing that she was thinking bigger than herself and looking out for other people,” DiBrango said.

“We have no idea what she looked like, there are no photographs or drawings or no physical descriptions,” Carroll said. “In fact, a lot of the facts about her life are still unknown.”

What is known is that, when Mullany was just 19, she organized the first ever all-female labor union in the United States.

“This was a place where the history of labor in the United States was dramatically changed by this incredibly enterprising 19-year-old Irish immigrant woman,” Carroll said.

The so-called Collar Laundry Union fought to improve wages and working conditions for women employed in Troy’s bustling shirt and collar factories, where Mullany earned her living.

“The working people like Kate Mullany did not have enough money from their regular paychecks to feed their kids, so it was either starve to death or organize and go on strike,” Carroll said.

After five days of striking, the workers earned a 25% raise. Years later, Mullany became the first woman to hold office for a nationwide labor union.

“It’s awe-inspiring to think a 19-year-old woman could organize an entire labor union on her own, knowing all the family obligations women had at home,” DiBrango said.

Mullany is of particular interest to DiBrango, because she, too, is fighting for the rights of the working class as the Executive Vice President of the New York State United Teachers union.

“I’m very honored and humbled to be among the labor movement,” said DiBrango, who worked as a teacher in the Rochester area before relocating to the Capital Region. “We are the largest group of organized working women in the country, the labor movement.”

The second floor of the house is home to the American Labor Studies Center, a non-profit devoted to teaching students about the history of the labor movement and its leaders like Mullany. DiBrango sits on the organization’s board of directors.

“It is really relevant to today’s world,” she said. “We are seeing strikes happening all over the country.”

More than a century after her death, efforts to celebrate Mullany’s legacy are taking hold. Her Troy house is now America’s only national historic site tied to the labor movement. Once a restoration is complete, the public will be invited in to learn about a woman whose impact is still felt by countless workers each day.

“That’s what a lot of these strikes are all about, that the next generation does better than the generation before,” DiBrango said. “That’s what people are fighting for today, and that’s what people have always fought for.”

This story has been edited to correct the spelling of P. Thomas Carroll's name.