Tristan wrote this essay in 1843 after an extensive stay in Peru and a short trip to Britain where she produced works on the social conditions along the Channel. "The Workers' Union" was the last of her writings and gave her a public persona of political activist. Through this work, one can compare Tristan to similar Utopian Socialists including Charles Fourier (whom she knew personally) and the works of the French Socialists, the Saint Simonians, whose works she had studied through the years. Tristan took into account the studies and teachings of these previous socialists, but created a different solution to the suppression of not only the proletariat, but the working women as well. She was the first to connect the freedom of the working class with the advancement of women's rights.