# BE BOLD FOR BREAD & ROSES!

# BE BOLD FOR BREAD & ROSES!

On March 8, 1857 several hundred courageous & bold women laboring in New York City's sweatshops took to the streets, striking against low wages, dangerous conditions, and the 12-hour workday in textile and garment factories. This strike became the basis for International Women’s Day.

Women and girls between the ages of 13 and 25, typically worked 12 to 14 hours, 7 days a week at a sewing machine in a factory without central heating, electricity, or ventilation.  They got paid approximately $3.00 a week of which $1.25 had to be kept out to pay for room and board.  There were no protections against the spread of fire. Because of these working conditions, women often suffered from serious workplace injuries, chronic migraines and fatigue, swollen feet and ankles, and contagious illnesses that spread quickly and easily in the cramped factories.   Noticing that the women were less ‘energetic’ if they were allowed to eat before working, the factory foreman, changed the factory opening time to 5am, this is what sparked the strike.

This strike -- the first to be documented by some claims, as a strike by women exclusively for the purpose of women's rights -- was broken up by police, who attacked the protesters, but this didn't break their spirit. Two years later they formed a labor union. The United States Congress will not enact the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees workers the right to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, until 1935.

Twelve years after the strike in May of 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association with the primary goal of achieving voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution.

On March 8, 1908, fifty years after the strike, more than 15,000 women in New York marched under banners demanding equal pay, the right to vote, child care during the work day, and better working conditions, adopting the slogan "Bread and Roses": bread for economic stability, and roses for a better way of life.

In 1910, Clara Zetkin, at an international conference held by socialist organizations from around the world in Copenhagen, proposed that March 8 be declared International Women's Day in recognition of the strikes of 1857 and 1908. Over 100 women from 17 countries greeted the idea with unanimous approval.  Each year more and more women and men celebrate International Women's Day and commit themselves to fighting for equality.

Today The World Economic Forum predicts the gender gap may take until 2186 to close.

The next Equal Pay Day is Tuesday, April 4, 2017. This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.

International Women’s Day is calling for everyone around the world to join together to speed up this process. This is why 2017 is about #Be Bold For Change.

"Join the union, girls, and together say, Equal Pay for Equal Work!"     ~Susan B. Anthony

       Like our sisters before us,  it's our time to 

                              #BE BOLD!

RESOURCES:

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/640

www.unionist.com

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/where-did-international-women-s-day-come-from

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

https://statusofwomendata.org/