- Person
- Rose Schneiderman
- Lived
- 1882–1972
- Field
- Labour organising
- From
- Polish-American
The story
By 1912 Rose Schneiderman was chief organiser for the New York Women's Trade Union League, and a year earlier she had helped found the Wage Earners' League for Woman Suffrage. Suffragists knew that winning the vote in any state meant persuading men at the ballot box, including the working men of industrial towns.
That year Ohio held a constitutional convention, and delegates sent a women's suffrage amendment to a statewide vote. The proposal would have replaced the words "white male" in the voting provisions with "every citizen". Ohio already had a long suffrage history: an 1850 women's rights convention in the state was the first outside New York, and women had won the right to vote in school board elections in 1894.
On behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Schneiderman travelled through Ohio's industrial cities, lecturing to working men to win their support. She spoke in terms they would recognise. As she later explained, "My argument to them was that if their wives and daughters were enfranchised, labor would be able to influence legislation enormously." In a speech in Cleveland in June 1912 she gave the line for which she is best remembered, that the worker "must have bread, but she must have roses, too". She was hailed as a powerful speaker.
The amendment failed in 1912, with 88 counties against and 24 in favour, and a second attempt in 1914 also failed, though both drew national attention to the cause. Ohio women kept pressing: East Cleveland gave women the municipal vote in 1916, and on 16 June 1919 Ohio became the fifth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. The words "white male" were not removed from the voting provisions of the state constitution until 1923.
For Schneiderman the tour was a training ground. Five years later she led the industrial section of the New York suffrage campaign, speaking at men's union meetings with the same argument, and that time the referendum passed. Her Ohio speeches helped spread the idea that votes for women served the whole labour movement, a link between workers' rights and women's rights that has endured.
Why it matters
Schneiderman's tour helped persuade working men that women's suffrage served the whole labour movement, building support that eventually won women the vote.
About Rose Schneiderman
Polish-Jewish immigrant cap-maker who became a towering labour leader, popularised the cry “bread and roses” and helped shape New Deal labour law.
More about Rose Schneiderman
- Rose Schneiderman fought for workers' bread and roses“The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too,” Rose Schneiderman declared in 1912; she spent half a century winning better wages, hours and safety for working women.
- Rose Schneiderman founded a union's first women's localIn 1903 Rose Schneiderman organised the women in her cap factory so quickly that the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' Union chartered its first women's local within days.
- Rose Schneiderman was a founding member of the ACLURose Schneiderman was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, bringing a labour organiser's experience to the defence of free speech and civil liberties.
- Rose Schneiderman took women's labour rights worldwideRose Schneiderman was a key member of the first International Congress of Working Women in 1919, which aimed to address women's working conditions at the new International Labour Organization.
- Rose Schneiderman's speech after the Triangle fireAt a memorial meeting on 2 April 1911, after the Triangle fire killed 146 garment workers, Rose Schneiderman declared that working people must save themselves through a strong movement.
- Rose Schneiderman refused a privilege few workers hadIn 1908 Rose Schneiderman turned down a scholarship to finish her schooling, saying she could not accept a privilege so few working women had, and organised workers instead.
- Rose Schneiderman brought working women into suffrageFrom 1907 Rose Schneiderman argued that working women needed the vote to win better conditions, helping widen the suffrage movement beyond the middle class.
- Rose Schneiderman helped win the vote for New York womenIn 1917 Rose Schneiderman led the industrial section of New York's suffrage campaign, and the state referendum that year gave New York's women full voting rights.
Sources
- Rose Schneiderman Wikipedia
- Rose Schneiderman Jewish Women's Archive
- Women's suffrage in Ohio Wikipedia
- Bread and Roses Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.