Women Marching For Their Rights Is Nothing New, Just Ask the Immigrant Leader of 1864 Troy Strike

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Long Island, NY
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In 2014 women and girls in Troy New York reenacted the Women's Strike of February 1864.
154 years ago hundreds of women took to the icy streets of Troy, New York, to protest poor pay and working conditions in the shirt collar industry. Kate Mullany, a 19 year old Irish immigrant, and her friends Esther Keegan and Sarah McQuillan had organized 300 women workers into the Collar Laundry Union, thereby helping create the first sustained women-led labor union in the country. The women won their six day strike.

She went on to be elected vice president of the National Labor Union. Immigrant America during the Civil War was definitely not mired in the gendered assumptions of the "Victorian Era." Women worked, organized, and marched outside the home.

Mullany also led strikes in 1866 and 1868.
 
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The Women Of Ireland Lyrics
There's a woman in Erin who'd give me shelter and my fill of ale;
There's a woman in Ireland who'd prefer my strains to strings being played;
There's a woman in Eirinn and nothing would please her more
Than to see me burning or in a grave lying cold.

There's a woman in Eirinn who'd be mad with envy if I was kissed
By another on fair-day, they have strange ways, but I love them all;
There are women I'll always adore, battalions of women and more
And there's this sensuous beauty and she shackled to an ugly boar.

There's a woman who promised if I'd wander with her I'd find some gold
A woman in night dress with a loveliness worth more than the woman
Who vexed Ballymoyer and the plain of Tyrone;
And the only cure for my pain I'm sure is the ale-house down the road.

"Mná na hÉireann" (English: Women of Ireland), is a poem written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1704–1796), most famous as a song, and especially set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada (1931–1971). As a modern song, Mná na hÉireann is usually placed in the category of Irish rebel music[citation needed]; as an eighteenth-century poem it belongs to the genre (related to the aisling) which imagines Ireland as a generous, beautiful woman suffering the depredations of an English master on her land, her cattle, or her self, and which demands Irishmen to defend her, or ponders why they fail to.[1] The poem also seems to favor Ulster above the other Irish provinces.

Kate Mullany is reflective of many Irish women, and the Irish in general. Thanks for making us aware of her, Pat.
 
Irish women have been fighting for rights and paying the price, since they all got here. Sometimes the despots won- for the moment. Irish women buried a lot of dead in this labor fight. Our area of Pennsylvania witnessed an awful lot of Irish widows raising families through the 1870's. In 2018 it remains a bad topic. Perhaps a different kind of fight, no one could make it to Seneca Falls, heck, may not have known of fights elsewhere but the Ancient Order of the Hiberians fought, men and women, against coal and railroad labor chokeholds.

This was just one of the betrayed labor leaders being executed, at Pottsville's prison, here in Schuylkill County. Most were vets, marrying when coming home from the war- but so was the man who killed them. That awful prison is the only memorial there is. Used to be a house, unmarked, on top of a mountain here but someone tore it down. Mollies met there. Now we only have graves.

mm parting.jpg


mm yellow.jpg
 
The Women Of Ireland Lyrics
There's a woman in Erin who'd give me shelter and my fill of ale;
There's a woman in Ireland who'd prefer my strains to strings being played;
There's a woman in Eirinn and nothing would please her more
Than to see me burning or in a grave lying cold.

There's a woman in Eirinn who'd be mad with envy if I was kissed
By another on fair-day, they have strange ways, but I love them all;
There are women I'll always adore, battalions of women and more
And there's this sensuous beauty and she shackled to an ugly boar.

There's a woman who promised if I'd wander with her I'd find some gold
A woman in night dress with a loveliness worth more than the woman
Who vexed Ballymoyer and the plain of Tyrone;
And the only cure for my pain I'm sure is the ale-house down the road.

"Mná na hÉireann" (English: Women of Ireland), is a poem written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1704–1796), most famous as a song, and especially set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada (1931–1971). As a modern song, Mná na hÉireann is usually placed in the category of Irish rebel music[citation needed]; as an eighteenth-century poem it belongs to the genre (related to the aisling) which imagines Ireland as a generous, beautiful woman suffering the depredations of an English master on her land, her cattle, or her self, and which demands Irishmen to defend her, or ponders why they fail to.[1] The poem also seems to favor Ulster above the other Irish provinces.

Kate Mullany is reflective of many Irish women, and the Irish in general. Thanks for making us aware of her, Pat.
Thanks for adding that.
 
Irish women have been fighting for rights and paying the price, since they all got here. Sometimes the despots won- for the moment. Irish women buried a lot of dead in this labor fight. Our area of Pennsylvania witnessed an awful lot of Irish widows raising families through the 1870's. In 2018 it remains a bad topic. Perhaps a different kind of fight, no one could make it to Seneca Falls, heck, may not have known of fights elsewhere but the Ancient Order of the Hiberians fought, men and women, against coal and railroad labor chokeholds.

This was just one of the betrayed labor leaders being executed, at Pottsville's prison, here in Schuylkill County. Most were vets, marrying when coming home from the war- but so was the man who killed them. That awful prison is the only memorial there is. Used to be a house, unmarked, on top of a mountain here but someone tore it down. Mollies met there. Now we only have graves.

View attachment 173947

View attachment 173948
I want to spend some time there.
 
Irish women have been fighting for rights and paying the price, since they all got here. Sometimes the despots won- for the moment. Irish women buried a lot of dead in this labor fight. Our area of Pennsylvania witnessed an awful lot of Irish widows raising families through the 1870's. In 2018 it remains a bad topic. Perhaps a different kind of fight, no one could make it to Seneca Falls, heck, may not have known of fights elsewhere but the Ancient Order of the Hiberians fought, men and women, against coal and railroad labor chokeholds.

This was just one of the betrayed labor leaders being executed, at Pottsville's prison, here in Schuylkill County. Most were vets, marrying when coming home from the war- but so was the man who killed them. That awful prison is the only memorial there is. Used to be a house, unmarked, on top of a mountain here but someone tore it down. Mollies met there. Now we only have graves.

View attachment 173947

View attachment 173948
This is very interesting, JPK, and also desperately sad. Hard to imagine the times that were in it, and what it took to move things forward to where they are today. We have much to thank our ancestors for including their bravery, and willingness to put their lives on the line for what they believed in.

As to Pat's OP, to be a young woman in foreign land, and take a stand as Kate did, goes to show how little she felt she had to lose, and how much to gain. Therein lies the fight for many. And a willingness to accept the attendant risk, based on an abiding sense of justice.
 
As to Pat's OP, to be a young woman in foreign land, and take a stand as Kate did, goes to show how little she felt she had to lose, and how much to gain. Therein lies the fight for many. And a willingness to accept the attendant risk, based on an abiding sense of justice.

After the strike, she raised money to help women workers organize in other parts of the Northeast.
 
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