A union activist. she joined the Federal Labor Union which was a part of the American Federation of Labor. she attended State labor meetings as a representative of the Cigar Makers Union. In 1897 she joined the faculty of Wellesley College as an assistant professor of economics and became a full professor in 1913. While teaching courses on the labor movement. socialism. and immigration. Balch remained active in social causes. In 1903. she helped found the Womens Trade Union League. She worked on drafting a Massachusetts minimum wage bill and was among the organizers of the first State conference of charities in Massachusetts. Balch took a sabbatical from Wellesley College from 1904 to 1906 to study AustriaHungary emigration. The resulting publication "Our Slavic Fellow Citizens" is one of the more frequently cited books on the history of immigration. After the outbreak of World War I she began her career as a peace activist. In 1915 she attended the International Congress of Women at The Hague with Jane Adams and 42 other American women.
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immigration emigration