Happy Birthday, Rose Schneiderman

(Pre-1916 photo of Rose Schneiderman, from Wikimedia Commons)

Rose Schneiderman (April 6, 1882 – August 11, 1972) was a labor union leader, women’s rights activist, and socialist. She organized the first women’s local of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers Union and became one of the most prominent members of the Women’s Trade Union League.

Ms. Schneiderman was also active in the women’s suffrage movement. She saw suffrage as a crucial part of the fight for economic rights. When a state legislator warned in 1912 that “Get women into the arena of politics with its alliances and distressing contests — the delicacy is gone, the charm is gone, and you emasculize women”, Schneiderman ripped apart the hypocrisy of those who would “protect” women from being full citizens:

We have women working in the foundries, stripped to the waist, if you please, because of the heat. Yet the Senator says nothing about these women losing their charm. They have got to retain their charm and delicacy and work in foundries.
 

Of course, you know the reason they are employed in foundries is that they are cheaper and work longer hours than men. Women in the laundries, for instance, stand for 13 or 14 hours in the terrible steam and heat with their hands in hot starch.
 

Surely these women won’t lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that.

She is also credited with one of the most famous declarations of the women’s movement and labor movement:

What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

Today, as when Rose Schneiderman fought the good fight, we need bread and we need roses. Support the right to vote. Support the labor movement.