Jacqueline of All Trades

I thought it was important to share who Rose Winslow was and her impact on the women's rights movement, since I was not present to share my suffragette presentation with the class.

 

Rose Winslow was born as Ruza Wenclawsha. She immigrated to Pennsylvania with her parents from Poland as an infant. Her father was a coal miner and steel worker. At age 11, Rose was a mill worker in the hosiery industry and a shop girl. At age 19, she contracted tuberculosis and was unable to work for two years.

After Rose's two year hiatus from work, she returned as a factory inspector and trade union organizer in New York City with the National Consumers' League and the National Women's Trade Union League.  Rose also performed as an actress and was an avid poet.

 Rose was recruited during this time to join the Congressional Union and National Women's Party, but was skeptical about joining. She was concerned that the organizations focused too strongly on the higher and middle classes, and that the groups failed to adequately acknowledge and represent the lower working class. Rose felt that do to her upbringing with such a socioeconomic status, she understood the more extensive struggles that a lower class working woman experienced.

She eventually agreed to join and brought with her to the organizations a great ability to speak and organize. She participated in numerous rallies, meetings, and speeches advocating women's rights and put an emphasis on the injustices of lower, working class women. 

Rose Winslow's most notable impact on the women's movement was her participation in a picketing event and subsequent arrest. In 1914, Rose met with another well-known women's rights activists, Doris Stevens and Alice Paul. This meeting led to marches in the capitol and the eventual picketing of the White House. The primary purpose of the National Women's Party picketing was to encourage the president to pressure Democratic senators to vote in favor of a constitutional suffrage amendment. 

In 1917, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Rose Winslow, and other members of the party were arrested for obstructing traffic and sent to the District Jail/Occoquan Workhouse. While imprisoned, Alice, Lucy, and Rose led other women in a hunger strike to further teach the president and the nation a lesson. An eventual press release about the conditions of the workhouse freed them. 

The first thing I really admired about Winslow was her strong work ethic as a child. At age 11, she was able to hold down two jobs simultaneously. I think that makes her a strong role model to both women and youth. I don't advocated children so young working, but I think that it demonstrates how much youth are actually able to do. Winslow was also interested in the arts represented by her acting and poetry. She was what you might call a Jacqueline of All Trades. I also admire her strong ties to the lower working classes. She refused to participate in groups like the National Women's Party if they did not focus on all types of women and not simply a select few. She wasn't willing to fight for some women, but was an enduring advocate for all women.

To learn more about Winslow, I highly encourage you to visit the website, http://www.suffragistmemorial.org/Suffragist_of_the_Month.html, and read more about her impact under August 2012. You can find several other important leaders of the movement featured as well.