march is women's herstory month-this year honouring women trailblazers in labor and business
National Women’s History Month 2017 Theme-
“Honoring Trailblazing Women in Labor and Business” –
The 2017 theme for National Women’s History Month honors women who have successfully challenged the role of women in both business and the paid labor force. Women have always worked, but often their work has been undervalued and unpaid. The 2017 Honorees represent many diverse backgrounds and each made her mark in a different field. Additionally, the Honorees’ work and influence spans three centuries of America’s history. These women all successfully challenged the social and legal structures that have kept women’s labor underappreciated and underpaid.
Facing stark inequalities in the workplace (lower wages, poor working conditions, and limited opportunities), they fought to make the workplace a less hostile environment for women. They succeeded in expanding women’s participation in commerce and their power in the paid labor force. As labor and business leaders and innovators they defied the social mores of their times by demonstrating women’s ability to create organizations and establish their own businesses that paved the way for better working conditions and wages for themselves and other women.
They proved that women could succeed in every field. While each Honoree is extraordinary, each is also ordinary in her own way, proving that women business and labor leaders can and should be considered the norm. Most importantly, the 2017 Honorees paved the way for generations of women labor and business leaders to follow.
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Meet some of the honorees:
Rebecca Anderson
(1940)
Community and Economic Development Organizer
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Rebecca “Becky” Anderson and a team of Western North Carolinians created HandMade in America. She was founding director of the organization, which established a craft-focused economy for 25 counties in the state. It became a cultural heritage model for National Heritage Areas, and a model for 16 state programs.
As Director of Handmade, Anderson coordinated major projects in tourism, small town revitalization, and education programs for school systems. She established The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design for the North Carolina University system. Her heritage tourism program began with Craft Heritage Trail guidebooks taking visitors through 23 counties to studios, galleries and local heritage sites. As a result craft maker incomes increased by 23%. Under Anderson’s leadership, Handmade received multiple honors including the Award of Merit for Sustainable Development from Renew America, Inc. In 2003 Worth Magazine ranked Handmade one of the top 24 arts non-profits in the U.S.
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Kate Mullany
(1845 – 1906)
Organized First All-Female Labor Union
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Kate Mullany formed the nation’s first bona fide all-female union. In 1864 she organized over 300 of her fellow Troy, New York laundresses into the Collar Laundry Union.
Born in England of Irish parents, Mullany immigrated to the U.S. with her family and, following her father’s death, went to work to support her mother and siblings. Mullany worked in one of Troy’s 14 collar laundries, where women worked 12 to 14 hour days washing, starching, and ironing. Although considered a good job, working conditions were dangerous and wages were low. Inspired by the successful efforts of local tradesmen, Mullany organized her fellow laundresses. Organizing was challenging, as many of the women had family obligations after work and there was no large venue for them to meet, but Mullany was determined, and the Collar Laundry Union was born.
On February 23, 1864 Mullany and her fellow workers walked out of their jobs in Troy’s laundries and went on strike. Mullany and the union demanded higher wages and safer working conditions. At first the laundry owners refused to negotiate, but the Collar Laundry Union, supported by the local Iron Molder’s Union, refused to budge on its demands. After five days, a few of the laundry owners finally gave in and agreed to increase wages by 25 percent, and the following day the remaining laundries followed. The strike was a success. In recognition of her leadership, Mullany was the first woman to become an officer of a national union when she was selected assistant secretary of the National Labor Union in 1868. She later moved to Buffalo, where she married John Fogarty and opened the Troy Laundry.
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Lucy Gonzalez Parsons
(c. 1853- 1942)
Labor Organizer and Socialist Leader
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Lucy Gonzalez Parsons was a labor organizer, radical socialist, and anarchist. She was a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and was a prolific writer and speaker. At the height of her activism, Parsons was described by the Chicago Police Department as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” Lucy Gonzalez had Native American, African American, and Mexican heritage and may have been born into slavery. She married Albert Parsons in 1871. Due to intolerance of their interracial marriage, the couple was forced to move north from Texas. Relocating to Chicago, Illinois, the Parsons became increasingly involved in revolutionary activism championing workers’ rights, political prisoners,people of color, the homeless, and women. Lucy Parsons wrote for multiple radical publications including The Socialist, and The Alarm, the journal of the International Working People’s Association.
The Parsons were arrested numerous times for giving public speeches and distributing anarchist materials. In 1887, her husband was arrested and subsequently executed in Illinois for his assumed involvement in the Haymarket Riot, believed by many to be a frame-job. In 1905 Parsons was a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World, an international organization that believes that all workers should unite as a social class. Focus on class struggles of poverty and unemployment, Parsons, in 1915, organized the Chicago Hunger
Demonstrations, sparking a huge demonstration the following month with collaboration from the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party, and Jane Addams’ Hull House. Parsons is credited with envisioning strikes of the future, where rather than walking out strikers would stay in and take over the property of production, what would become sit-down strikes in the U.S.
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Maggie Lena Walker
(1864 – 1934)
Businesswoman and Community Banking Leader
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Maggie Lena Walker was the first African American woman in the U.S. to charter a bank. Her success as a business leader and community organizer made her an inspiration to African Americans and women across the country. Raised in post-Civil War Richmond, Virginia, Walker gained leadership experience as a teenager when she joined the Independent Order of St. Luke. This fraternal organization promoted humanitarian causes and encouraged individual self-help efforts. Walker held numerous leadership positions and in 1899 she took the top leadership role of Right Worthy Grand Secretary; a post she held until her death. Under Walker’s leadership the Order significantly increased its number of chapters and greatly improved its financial solvency.
In 1902 she created a newspaper, the St. Luke Herald, to improve communication between the Order and the public. In 1903 Walker established the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and served as its first president. Walker gained notoriety as the first African American woman to charter a bank. Walker’s bank later merged with two others, forming the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, and she served as chair of the new bank’s board of directors until her death. The bank thrived as the oldest continuously African American-operated bank in the U.S. until 2009.
Walker’s continued success in business gave her additional opportunities to pursue her goals of empowering African Americans and women. She served on the boards of many women’s groups including the National Association of Colored Women, and the Virginia Industrial School for Girls. Walker served as a local vice president of the NAACP and as a member of the Virginia Interracial Commission.
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http://www.nwhp.org/womens-history-month/2017-honoree-nominations/
