The National Domestic Workers Union of America (NDWUA), founded by Dorothy Bolden in 1968, was the most resilient union of domestic workers in U.S. labor history. Given the difficulties and discrimination confronting poor African American women in the urban south, sociologists are driven to ask how did such a strong union form and endure? This dissertation will answer the question by drawing on literature concerning the Civil Rights and Labor movements, theories of social movement organization, and examinations of the internal leadership structure of the Civil Rights movement. The case study of the NDWUA will be developed using material from new primary sources, including archival materials from the union and related organizations, and interviews with NDWUA leaders, members, and knowledgeable others. The case material will be analyzed by applying two interrelated strategies, the extended case method and event structure analysis, which in combination allow the organization's life history to be analyzed in a logical, rigorous, replicable manner.
