Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press

This Package Contains Nine Cards 1. Women’s Trade Union League, ca. 1900 2. Women’s Emergency Brigade, 1937 Auto Strike 3. Workers in “Ideal” Factory, ca. 1912 Page 171 →4. World War II Railroad Workers 5. Lucy Parsons, Early Post-Civil War Labor Organizer and Activist 6. Crystal Lee Jordan Sutton, Textile Organizer of Modern Times 7. Frances Perkins, New Deal Secretary of Labor and First Woman in the Cabinet 8. Rose Schneiderman and Dorothy Bellanca, Early Garment Industry Organizers 9. Composite of Above Eight Cards

Bread & Roses is the universally recognized rallying cry of women in the American labor movement. In the late 19th & early 20th centuries, when immigration and industrial mechanization grew at a furious pace, the inhuman exploitation of cheap labor abounded. Women and children had the lowest pay and greatest abuses and were virtually ignored by early trade unions. They realized they must rely on themselves and unify to meet their own special needs. The historic Lawrence, Mass. textile strike of 1912 brought 10,000 men and women workers to the picket lines in an unprecedented show of unity. A contingent of women marched with their banner: “We want Bread & Roses too!”. The slogan caught on instantly and inspired the “Bread & Roses” marching song by James Oppenheim, which is still sung at women’s and workers’ gatherings today.

The Women’s Trade Union League (1903-1947) was founded to promote collective bargaining and education (including how to organize) for women wage-earners, who were widely excluded from the men’s unions and paid half or less of their wages. The League worked and demonstrated for better hours, pay, safety, and general conditions, and against child labor, speed-up, and other widespread evils. A unique combination of wealthy women, social and govt. workers, and rank-and-file, it drew on the knowledge, experience, and financial resources of all classes. Many workers had never heard of Page 163 →unions (though their male relatives might belong), knew nothing of laws, and often spoke no English. The WTUL existed to serve them, under such leaders/members as Frances Perkins, Rose Schneiderman, Jane Addams, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Women’s Emergency Brigade, United Auto Workers Strike, Flint, Mich., 1937. They battled the militia, were gassed as they broke factory windows to get air to their tear-gassed men, and diverted police to a decoy building while another more crucial plant was quietly occupied. 125,000 workers took part in the long sit-down strike that put the UAW on the map. Previously their women co-workers and relatives were only auxiliary members, providing first aid and food. Without previous political or organizing experience, they formed the Brigade, marching in berets and armbands (red for Flint, green for Detroit), linking arms and singing. When not marching and fighting, they worked day and night to provide food, clothes, medical supplies, reading matter, lamps, etc. to strikers. The Brigade was a deciding factor in the historic labor victory. In 1977, they held a 40-year reunion.

Glaze-dippers at a Detroit spark plug factory, about 1912. This workroom is highly exceptional for its light, air, space, and cleanliness. This was a time of much publicity and too little action concerning factory conditions. Crusading social workers and Page 164 →government inspectors such as Frances Perkins, Jane Addams, and Florence Kelley exposed a shocking lack of safety from fire, toxins, machinery, and contaminants. Wages were usually below subsistence, with conditions and pay the worst for women and children. Work hazards were a major cause of death and disability. A tiny handful of employers were proud of their “ideal” factories.

Trackwomen on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 1943. The wartime manpower shortage opened more jobs of more kinds to women than ever before. Employers hired Black women, over-35’s, and married women—3 groups previously barred from most offices and industries. About 90% of Black working women were domestics or farm workers before the war, but 18% worked in factories by war’s end, and those on farms were halved. Equal pay and promotions were decreed by new laws, but these were not fully enforced, especially for Blacks and older women. However, wages and opportunities were better than ever before. Peacetime put more than 2 million women in nontraditional jobs out of work, but most found other jobs in the postwar boom, contrary to all predictions—even their own.

Lucy Parsons (1853-1942), American free speech and labor leader. A Black with Hispanic and Native American heritage, she was a dramatic speaker, noted equally for Page 165 →her powers of analysis and of voice. She was a central figure in Chicago and the working-class movement nationally, especially after her husband and colleague, Albert, was hanged following the infamous Haymarket “riots” maneuvered by the Chicago police in 1886. She was a founding member of Industrial Workers of the World and one of the original woman members of the Knights of Labor. Variously described as an anarchist and socialist revolutionary, she was mostly remembered as a life, long champion of the hungry, jobless, and foreign born. She spent her life organizing, travelling, writing, and leafletting, giving all she had to her causes for 70 years. When she died in poverty at 89, her large literary and political library was confiscated by the F.B.I. and never released.

Crystal Lee Jordan Sutton (b. 1940). Born into a North Carolina weaving family, she became a dynamic organizer of textile workers in the landmark J.P. Stevens unionizing drive of 1973-74, in her native Roanoke Rapids, a “company” town. Textile and clothing is the only basic U.S. industry not fully organized, despite a southern workforce of 700,000. “Brown lung,” deafening noise, and low pay are among the argued issues. The Textile Workers Union of America* targeted Crystal’s town. One night during her shift, she stood up alone to management and went to jail; but TWUA won the subsequent election and a contract. The company still refuses to comply legally, and a widely publicized product boycott continues. *Now the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.

Frances Perkins (1880-1965), U.S. Secretary of Labor 1933-45, first woman in the Presidential Cabinet. She was a lifelong champion of labor from her collegiate social work days and, witnessing the 1911 Triangle factory fire, vowed “to spend my life fighting conditions that would permit such a tragedy.” A leading architect of the New Deal, she greatly influenced all major modern legislation in favor of collective bargaining, retirement pensions, wage and hour laws, and unemployment benefits. Even so, male laborers were often among her opponents because of her efforts to help working women, children, minorities, and immigrants and because they felt a man should have her job. Conservative newspapers puffed the rumors that she was a foreign-born Jewish communist, citing maiden name as “evidence” of concealed identity. The House actually held impeachment hearings. Acquitted, she resumed her job and went on to teach labor courses at Cornell, working all her 85 years.

Rose Schneiderman (1882-1972) and Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca (1894-1946), clothing trade organizers. Both were daughters of eastern European Jewish tailors who came to the U.S. As child laborers themselves, they well knew the deplorable conditions they fought all their lives. Bellanca pioneered women’s membership in the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. A specialist in immigrants’ problems, she was described as “loved by the strikers, admired by neighbors, and feared by the police.” Like Schneiderman, she served Page 167 →in several important government positions on behalf of women and children. Schneiderman was active in the Women’s Trade Union League throughout its 40 years and was president of the N. Y. League most of that time. Early fame came with her memorial speech following the Triangle factory fire in 1911. During the New Deal era, she was on the Labor Board of the National Recovery Act.

Bread and Roses Women in the American Labor Movement, Bread & Roses emblem.

Amelia Earhart (1898-1937), aviator, pacifist, teacher, and adventurer. Earhart's lifetime coincided with the pioneer years of aviation: its exciting newness exactly suited her. As a nurse's aide in Canada during World War I, she became interested in aviation. Later in California she worked for the company to pay for flying lessons (from pioneer pilot Neta Snook) and for a plane. Earhart was the first woman to fly the Atlantic (1928), but as log keeper; four years later however, she became the first woman pilot to solo that trip. She twice broke the transcontinental speed record. Earhart was the first to fly nonstop from Mexico City to Newark, N.J., and to solo from Honolulu to the mainland U.S. (1935). On a round-the-world research flight in 1937 she disappeared, presumably having gone down in the Pacific. Earhart wrote and lectured on her experiences as an aviator, aiming to encourage economic opportunities and independence for women.

Amelia Earhart (1898-1937). Her lifetime coincided with the pioneer years of aviation, and its exciting newness at every stage exactly suited her. She is shown here with the autogiro, a small, light craft widely celebrated in the late '20s and early '30s. (Sometimes called a forerunner of the helicopter, it had greater maneuverability, safety, and economy than either the 'copter or light planes.) As a nurse's aide in Canada in World War I, Earhart became interested in aviation. She moved to California and worked for the phone company to pay for flying lessons—and a plane. She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic (1928), but as a passenger. She was the first woman to solo that trip in 1932. She twice broke the transcontinental speed record and was first to solo from Honolulu to the mainland (1935). She disappeared on a round-the-world research flight in 1937, presumably having gone down in the Pacific. Alternate theories have been publicized ever since, but none of them ever proven. She wrote several books and married her publisher/promoter George Putnam, with the agreement that they would keep their own names and split household expenses.

Trackwomen on the Baltimore & Ohio, 1943. The wartime manpower shortage opened more jobs of more kinds to women than ever before. Employers hired Black women, over-35’s, and married women—3 groups previously barred from most offices and industries. About 90% of Black working women were domestics or farm workers before the war, but 18% worked in factories by war's end, and those on farms were halved. Page 203 →Equal pay and promotions were decreed by new laws, but these were not fully enforced, especially for Blacks and older women. However, wages and opportunities were better than ever before. Peacetime put more than 2 million women in nontraditional jobs out of work, but most found other jobs in the postwar boom, contrary to all predictions—even their own.

Students making barrel furniture at Hampton Institute, 1900. Trades, agriculture, liberal arts and sciences were blended in this coeducational school for young Black and Native American students, founded in 1868. At a time when reconstruction and westward expansion were sorely trying most nonwhite Americans, Hampton was a cherished Page 158 →pocket of ideals made true. By 1899 it had about 1,000 students, 135 of them Indians, and all working their way through school. When the U.S. was planning its part in the great Paris Exposition of 1900, it included a Hampton exhibit as an example of hope and achievement, a sincere Progressive Era belief that education, religion and sound character could solve almost anything—even in the world outside Hampton’s beautiful campus. Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952), one of the foremost photographers of her time, took the Paris Exposition photos. Her Hampton Album was temporarily lost, then recovered and shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1966. These exquisite shots capture timeless moments in space, activity, composition—but, most of all, in portraits of human dignity. The great hall built by students from bricks of their own making; the geography lesson at the beach; a class in the greenhouse: all are caught in scenes that seem almost not to have gone by with the rest of their time.

Kimura Komako, shown on a visit to New York in 1917-18. A leading Japanese actress/dancer, Mme. Kimura came to the U.S. mainly to study the methods of American woman suffragists. She organized the first (1913) Japanese suffrage meeting, magazine and society—both called Shin Shin Fujin (New True Woman). It was a courageous, even shocking step, criticized but not given much real public notice. Yet it paved the way for the more famous Akiko Hiratsuka and her colleagues, who stunned the nation in 1920 by petitioning to end an ancient law against women's participation in political gatherings. They won that round and, in 1946, the franchise. On April 10, 13 million Japanese women voted for the first time in more than 25 centuries as a nation.

Kimura Komako, shown on a visit to New York in 1917-18. A leading Japanese actress/dancer, Mme. Kimura came to the U.S. mainly to study the methods of American woman suffragists. She organized the first (1913) Japanese suffrage meeting, magazine and society—both called Shin Shin Fujin (New True Woman). It was a courageous, even shocking step, criticized but not given much real public notice. Yet it paved the way for the more famous Akiko Hiratsuka and her colleagues, who stunned the nation in 1920 by petitioning to end an ancient law against women's participation in political gatherings. They won that round and, in 1946, the franchise. On April 10, 13 million Japanese women voted for the first time in more than 25 centuries as a nation.

Page 194 →Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), an early abolitionist, went to the 1840 World Antislavery Convention in London as a delegate, but was refused a seat because she was a woman. Along with a young colleague whom she greatly influenced, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she responded with historic rebellion. The two of them organized the landmark 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. Mott went on rebelling the rest of her years—as a women’s rights leader, Quaker minister, anti-sectarian, pacifist, temperance reformer, defender of Indians and immigrants … and a mother of six. At an 1856 women’s rights convention in New York, she said: “As the poor slave’s alleged contentment with his servile and cruel bondage only proves the depth of his degradation, so the assertion of woman that she has all the rights she wants, only proves how the restrictions and disabilities to which she has been subjected have rendered her insensible to the blessings of true liberty.”

Fighting for the Vote in England. Emmeline Pankhurst, left, (1857-1928) led in changing the tactics of the suffrage battle in Britain. With her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, and Page 10 →other political reformers, she established the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. They used polite means for several years without results. In 1905-06, they began to give soapbox speeches, disrupt meetings, resist arrests. As their numbers grew, the media invented the term “suffragettes” for them. It was intended disparagingly but the WSPU proudly retained it. (It is still mistakenly used for all suffragists). Their demonstrations were punished by serious beatings and mass jailing, with forced feedings during attempted hunger strikes. Public opinion swung in favor of the women, and their militancy increased to bombings and open combat by 1911. World War I diverted public attention, but the heroic defense work of British women turned the tide. They were enfranchised in January 1918, more than 2 years ahead of their American sisters. WSPU leaders on face of card: Lady Constance Lytton, who was made an invalid for life by maltreatment in prison; Labor champion Annie Kenney; Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, widely considered the best public speaker of her time; and Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst. Kenney and Sylvia Pankhurst were especially involved in the problems of poverty and the working classes.

The Woman Citizen. Adapted from a cover of The Woman Citizen for September 1919. The magazine was devoted to suffrage and other social reform.