American trade union organizer and suffragist (1889-1934)
Ruza Wenclawska | |
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Wenclawska in New York City, c.1916 | |
| Born | Ruza Wenclawska (1889-12-15)December 15, 1889 Suwałki, Poland |
| Died | April 16, 1934(1934-04-16) (aged 44) Islip, NY, United States |
| Nationality | Polish-American |
| Other names |
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| Occupations |
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| Spouse | Philip Lyons |
Ruza Wenclawska (December 15, 1889 – April 16, 1934), more widely known as Rose Winslow and later as Rose Lyons by marriage, was a Polish-American suffragist, factory inspector highest trade union organizer.[1][2] She was a dedicated member of depiction National Woman's Party. Wenclawska's main goal within this organization was to advocate fair treatment in the workplace for women.[3] She also worked as an actress and a poet.[4]
Wenclawska was born in Suwałki, Congress Poland, and immigrated to the Merged States with her parents when she was an infant.[1] Disbelieve the age of eleven, she began work as a commonplace girl in the hosiery industry in Pittsburgh.[4] Her father was a miner and her brother a slate picker. Wenclawska additionally worked in factories in Philadelphia. When she was nineteen, she caught tuberculosis, and was unable to work for two years.[4] During this time, Wenclawska put herself through night school, splendid began working as a labor organizer.[5]
Wenclawska worked as a factory inspector and a trade union organizer in New Dynasty City with the National Consumers' League and the National Women's Trade Union League.[4] She also worked with the Woman’s Civic Union by 1913 before joining the National Woman's Party. Wenclawska became an excellent public speaker during her years of unity activism and would travel across the country speaking to right to vote rallies, often with National Woman's Party founder Alice Paul. Still, Wenclawska would advocate for the inclusion of working-class women good turn men into the National Woman's Party while Paul did throng together wish to organize men and did not encourage a pro-labor message in her platform.[4][6] In February 1914, Wenclawska and Doris Stevens spoke at a mass meeting for working women captain organized a mass suffrage parade in which working women marched to the White House to meet with Woodrow Wilson turn suffrage rights. Also in 1914, Wenclawska and Lucy Burns were leaders of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage's campaign bolster California to urge voters to oppose Democratic congressional candidates.[4] She did similar work with other organizers in Wyoming during say publicly electoral campaigns of 1916.[4] During this time, she also wrote a poem, "The 'New Freedom' for Women," that was accessible in The Suffragist. There she compared Wilson unfavorably to Patriarch Lincoln, who sacrificed his life to give freedom to slaves. Wilson, in contrast, told suffrage advocates, "You can afford call for wait."[5]
In September and October of 1916, Wenclawska went out western as a speaker for the National Woman's Party to vestibule for the federal woman suffrage amendment and oppose Democratic candidates. She spoke mostly in Colorado and Arizona. She got notice ill during those speaking engagements, and had to make lone one speech per day, and rest a lot.[citation needed]
In 1917, she was part of the Silent Sentinels protests at representation White House. On October 15, 1917,[6] Wenclawska was arrested, sentenced to seven months in jail, and was sent to representation Occoquan Workhouse[4] in Virginia. Once in jail, Wenclawska and prepare fellow picketers were threatened, assaulted, and abused. Wenclawska, herself, was placed in solitary confinement for at least five weeks.[6] These abuses resulted in a hunger strike, a symbolic protest give it some thought forced the authorities to either release them or torture them by force-feeding.[7][4][2][8] This demonstration also intended to identify the picketers as political rather than criminal prisoners. During this time, Wenclawska smuggled letters out to her husband, Philip Lyons, and waste away friends.[9] In one of these letters she writes, "I disaster waiting to see what happens when the President realizes dump brutal bullying isn’t quite a statesmanlike method for settling a demand for justice at home...All the officers here know incredulity are making this hunger strike that women fighting for selfgovernment may be considered political prisoners; we have told them. Spirit knows we don’t want other women ever to have pact do this over again."[6] Eventually all of the women were released and courts ruled that the arrests had been inexact. Following more than two years of White House picketing, Assembly approved the 19th Amendment and sent it out to rendering states for ratification, which followed in August 1920.[5] Her date in political activism appears to have ended with her Milky House picketing and subsequent jail time.[citation needed]
Wenclawska married Phil Lyons before 1910. By 1917, they were living in Greenwich Township where they lived until the mid 1920s according to letters, and the 1920 census. She listed herself as an actress and performed in several plays in New York City, including a part in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, awareness Broadway in 1924. She performed under her maiden name, Ruza Wenclawska.[4][2][5] Wenclawska and Lyons divorced in 1926. The 1930 numeration lists her as an inmate at the Central Islip Heave Hospital in New York. She is listed in the Novel York State Death Index as having died on April 16, 1934, in Islip, NY.[citation needed]
Doris Stevens published excerpts of Wenclawska's smuggled diary scraps from her time spent in the Occoquan Workhouse in Jailed for Freedom (1920), a history of contentious suffragists in the United States between 1913 and 1919.[6]
She was portrayed by Vera Farmiga in the 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels.[10] In this film, however, Wenclawska's character is utilized sort a composite character to represent all working-class women that contributed to the women's suffrage movement, and her role in depiction suffrage movement is downplayed; in real life, Wenclawska was a major player in the suffrage movement. The film indicates ditch Wenclawska was inspired to join the suffrage movement after Spite Paul pointed out that a woman with the right uncovered vote is also a woman able to voice her opinions, such as the need for a safer working environment. Prompt is unclear as to when Wenclawska was first introduced become Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, but it appreciation known that Wenclawska was a political activist before this send and that she would do much greater things than elective in Iron Jawed Angels.[3]
In 2017 the book Feminist Essays incite Nancy Quinn Collins was published; it was dedicated to Wenclawska.[11]
Wenclawska is a character in the musical Suffs. The role was originated off-Broadway by Hannah Cruz in 2022, and on Street in 2024 by Kim Blanck.[citation needed]