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Does Anyone Know of any Other Female Labor Organizers Besides….?

December 29th, 2009 6 comments

Does anyone know of any other female labor organizers or activists besides "Mother" Mary Harris Jones? It’s been a while since I’ve studied women’s history and I know there were others but I can’t remember their names.

"Mother Mary Harris Jones, for anyone who doesn’t know, was so well-known that the Progressive Miners of America erected a monument to ‘Mother" to honor her gutsy decades of work. The monument is 22 feet tall and is built of 80 tons of pink Minnesota granite. When it was dedicated in 1936 an estimated 50,000 people attended. Genre Autry even recorded a song titled, "The Death of Mother Jones." Best known quote from Jones: "I’m not a humanitarian. I’m a hell-raiser!"

http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/jone-mar.htm
Sarah Bagley—yes, that is one lady I was trying to recall. Thanks!

Professor: That is so cool about the portrait.

Kessie: Thanks for the link.

I admire these two women labor organizers (other than Mother Jones, of course): Karen Silkwood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

Karen Silkwood: Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers’ Union activist who died while assisting union investigating plant safety at the Kerr-McGee plutonium fuels production plant in Crescent, OK. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interact/silkwood.html

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: In 1907 Flynn became a full-time organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Over the next few years she organised campaigns among garment workers in Pennsylvania, silk weavers in New Jersey, restaurant workers in New York, miners in Minnesota and textile workers in Massachusetts. During this period the writer, Theodore Dreiser, described her as "an East Side Joan of Arc.". Flynn was arrested ten times during this period but was never convicted of any criminal activity.

A founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Flynn was active in the campaign against the conviction of Sacco-Vanzetti. Flynn was particularly concerned with women’s rights. She supported birth control and women’s suffrage. Flynn also criticised the leadership of trade unions for being male dominated and not reflecting the needs of women. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAflynn.htm