Today in Herstory: The National American Woman Suffrage Association Kicks Off Its Longest-Ever Conv
Today in Herstory: The National American Woman Suffrage Association Kicks Off Its Longest-Ever Convention
Margaret Hinchey, on the left, and Rose Winslow, on the right.
November 30, 1913: Todays session of the National American Woman Suffrage Associations convention got off to a rousing start with the unfurling of a giant banner reading, WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.
This was immediately followed by thunderous applause, stirring speeches and a reminder that winning the vote will not be the end of the fight for full equality and justice.
Margaret Hinchey, a laundry worker turned labor activist, told why she became a suffragist who now works as an organizer for the Woman Suffrage Party:
People have often told me that the home is the place for women. But when that home is standing for 18 hours a day over a steam machine in a laundry, working ones very soul out, and going home so tired that sleep was almost impossible, and getting every Saturday night the large salary of $3 a week its different. Thats what we had to do in New York before the laundry workers struck. It was then that I started to work for woman suffrage, and I shall never stop until I die.
Hinchey then detailed the exploitation of children, some as young as 4, paid 5 cents to produce a gross of paper flowers, an operation that requires handling 2,000 articles to produce each batch of 144.
Rose Winslow, a former stocking weaver, also emphasized the connection between suffrage and better working conditions:
with the women given a chance in the making of laws, the laws will be made to give the girl workers the same chance that the men got.
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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/12/01/today-in-herstory-the-national-american-woman-suffrage-association-kicks-off-its-longest-ever-convention/