Women Made It Happen

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.afscmeblog.org/2009/03/11/women-made-it-happen/?__utma=1.2346843193277722000.1237762290.1237762290.1237762290.1&__utmb=1.3.10.1237762290&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1237762290.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=123864074

March 11th, 2009

AFSCME is celebrating Women’s History Month by remembering the women before us who made it happen and looking to the future of our labor movement.

Early union women took on issues like child labor, safe working conditions and better pay. In 1881, washerwomen in Atlanta went on strike for better wages and gained the support of the entire city to establish black workers as instrumental to the New South’s economy.

One hundred years later in 1981, AFSCME San Jose Local 101 went on strike, marking the first time women workers went to the picket lines for equal pay.


In 1981, when AFSCME librarians in San Jose, California, saw glaring inequities in jobs dominated by women and the ones dominated by men, they went on strike for pay equity, marking the first time workers went to the picket line over this issue.
(AFSCME archive photo)


Women continue to be a force in unions — it is predicted that by 2020 women will be a majority of the unionized workforce.

Earlier this month, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy joined a celebration of International Women’s Day at the United Nations — archived video of his speech at the event is available on the UN site. President Obama’s proclamation in honor of Women’s History Month is available on the White House website.



Over 54% of AFSCME member are women!

From my personal e-mail sig file:

March is Women’s History Month.

September 1913 Mother Jones warned miners:

“If you are too cowardly to fight there are enough women in this country to come in and beat the hell out of you.”

[bain_sidhe]

1. Women who ought to be famous

Many years ago, when I was the women's issues guide for About.com, I did a feature called "women who ought to be famous." I have the archived copy on line, although I have no idea if the links outside my feature are still good. But here's a few of the nominations from my readers:

http://www.webfaerie.com/content/WI_Archive/library/uc/bl_wwotbfnoms.htm

And these were my nominations:

Madam C.J. Walker
Madam C.J. Walker: 1867-1919
Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Social Activist
Sarah Breedlove Walker was the first African American woman millionaire. A quote:


"I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations....I have built my own factory on my own ground"


Renee Richards
Renee Richards - the transgendered woman who went to court to defend her right to be recognized as female. The court ruled that transsexuals after full transition and sex reassignment surgery were legally the new sex. This established an important precedent not just for sports but for all aspects of civil and private life involving transsexual persons.


Lydia Ann Moulton Jenkins
Lydia Ann Moulton Jenkins (1824/5 - May 7, 1874)
First US woman minister ordained by a denomination (see note) Little is known of Jenkins, especially her early life. Sometime in the late 1840s or 1850 she married Edmund Samuel Jenkins and the two became a ministerial team, preaching Universalism. Lydia Jenkins also spoke on women's rights.


Cornelia Fort
Cornelia Fort - the first woman to die on active duty for the United States, on March 21, 1943. Another pilot accidentally clipped the wing of the plane she was flying. Fort was a member of the Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), established by Jackie Cochran, the first woman to ferry a bomber across the Atlantic (1941) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flygirls/


Dovey Roundtree
Dovey Roundtree, who has been general counsel of the National Council of Negro Women for the past 30 years. Roundtree was one of a select group of African American women selected to integrate the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAC) in 1942. She was later admitted to Howard Law School in 1947 at a time when few blacks were able to go into law. In 1952, Roundtree represented a young black WAC who was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white male marine in North Carolina. Her work on the case led to a landmark 1955 civil rights ruling that helped integrate interstate travel.


Allison Ahlfeldt
Allison Ahlfeldt - born in December, 1977 with Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency. Which meant that she would be forced to wear a prosthetic below her right knee. After years of playing volleyball, Allison Ahlfeldt became a good enough volleyball player to be invited to try out for the USA Volleyball Team Disabled Standing. She was a little apprehensive about trying out and thought that if she was not good enough perhaps she could coach. Not only was she good enough, but they asked her to be the first women ever to play on this all-male team.

Cool woman indeed, who deserved way better than she got from the World Organization of Volleyball (Disabled). But as she said:

"I said to myself, 'I can just Freak OUT! or take a breath and handle it.' Make conscious decisions not to Freak OUT."


Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The first woman doctor to serve with the Army Medical Corps, Walker cared for sick and wounded troops in Tennessee at Chickamauga and in Georgia during the Battle of Atlanta. Confederate troops captured her on April 10, 1864, and held her until the sides exchanged prisoners of war on Aug. 12, 1864. Walker worked the final months of the war at a women's prison in Louisville, Ky., and later at an orphans' asylum in Tennessee.

The Army nominated Walker for the Medal of Honor for her wartime service. President Andrew Johnson signed the citation on Nov. 11, 1865, and she received the award on Jan. 24, 1866. Her citation cites her wartime service, but not specifically valor in combat.

The War Department, starting in 1916, reviewed all previous Medal of Honor awards with the intent of undoing decades of abuse. At the time, for instance, the medal could be freely copied and sold and legally worn by anyone. Past awards would be rescinded and future ones would be rejected if supporting evidence didn't clearly, convincingly show combat valor above and beyond the call of duty.

Mary Walker and nearly 1,000 past recipients found their medals revoked in the reform. Wearing the medal if unearned became a crime. The Army demanded Walker and the others return their medals. She refused and wore hers until her death at age 87 in 1919.

In the late 1960s, Ann Walker launched an intensive lobbying campaign to restore her aunt's medal. A Nov. 25, 1974, letter from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee read, in part, "It's clear your great-grandaunt was not only courageous during the term she served as a contract doctor in the Union Army, but also as an outspoken proponent of feminine rights. Both as a doctor and feminist, she was much ahead of her time and, as is usual, she was not regarded kindly by many of her contemporaries. Today she appears prophetic."

President Jimmy Carter restored Mary Walker's Medal of Honor on June 11, 1977. Today, it's on display in the Pentagon's women's corridor.


Josephine Baker
Everybody's heard of Josephine Baker. We all know that she was a African-American singer/dancer who didn't really become "famous" until she went to in Paris - where she was a hit there and in the rest of Europe for several years. But, did you know that she also:

... worked with the Red Cross during World War II, gathering intelligence for the French Resistance and entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East.

... after the war, she adopted, with her second husband, twelve children from around the world, making her home a World Village, a "showplace for brotherhood." She returned to the stage in the 1950s to finance this project.

...In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr.


Kate Mullaney
Kate Mullaney - Union Maid. Born in Ireland around 1845, immigrated to Troy, NY with her parents and her older sister Mary. In February of 1864 with almost 300 other women Kate announced the formation of the Collar Laundry Union - the first female union in the country.

Before the ink was fully dry on the new union charter, Kate led a strike against the 14 commercial laundries in the city of Troy demanding wage increases and attention to the womens’ concern of safety. Within a week the owners acceded to the Union demands and, a mere two years later in 1866, Collar Laundry Union members had increased their members wages to 14 dollars a week, from the previous 3-4 dollars a week.

[mrsadm]

2. This is fantastic information, thanks!

Thanks to Omaha Steve and bain_sidhe for these great facts of history.