Organizing Women Workers ( 1887 )

Organizing Women Workers (1887)

Leonora M. Barry was born in County Cork, Ireland, on August 13th, 1849. She was raised by her parents, John and Honor Granger Kearney (en.wikipedia.org). Leonora lost her mother at an early age and faced many family hardships. But, she persevered and became a school teacher at the age of 15. In 1880, Leonora’s husband died and she was left to raise three children alone. Leonora needed money so she got a job in a factory where she worked for two years. The factory was a miserable place to work with terrible hourly wages. However, she needed the money to support her family. In 1884, Leonora Barry joined the Knights of Labor and campaigned to abolish child labor. Leonora was elected to travel to different factories and record her observations of poor working conditions in factories for women. She traveled to the biggest industrial cities. This task prompted Leonora to write “Organizing Women Workers.” () Leonora was also prompted to write the article by her personal beliefs and views. She had worked in a factory for two years making no more than 65 cents in her first week but she pushed through and stuck with that factory job for two years (www.patheos.com).

Leonora traveled to many different factories along the East Coast during her term with the Knights of Labor. Her main goal was to bring attention to the wages and poor working conditions of women and children in the workforce. As she traveled, she wrote in her journal about the places she visited and the working conditions she observed. Many of the most startling encounters were from factories in Virginia (www.njwomenshistory.org). Leonora reported many of her findings in her journals. She wrote about the conditions of the factories, the type...

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...because it was so similar to the book.

From reading our textbook and doing further research about Leonora M. Barry and her significance as a famous female in history I learned how determined she had to be to write journals that exposed many factories’ mistreatment of women and children. Leonora was a brave woman that wanted to show people how hard is was to be a woman or child working in factories during the Rise of Industrial America. She wrote her articles knowing that she would receive judgement and backlash, but she kept writing. Eventually people sent the articles to inspectors they knew could help Leonora. They worked together for many years and were successful in abolishing most child labor, bettering the working conditions for women, and raising women’s wages. Leonora is a significant woman in history and her articles changed working conditions for women.