BREAD AND ROSES
- Words by James Oppenheim
From: The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database - downloaded direct
from the Internet
And Lift Every Voice! Songbook - words in brackets are from here
Music: Lift Every Voice Songbook (1953) gives composer as Martha Coleman;
Arranged by David Labovitz.
The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database gives composer as Mimi Farina,
1984 who composed it for a Judie Collins recording.
These tunes are extremely similar.
Information from Lift Every Voice! Songbook:
This song came out of the great Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike
of 1912. Most of the strikers were women who worked in the textile mills
and during the course of the struggle they raised the stirring slogan
of "Bread and Roses!" James Oppenheim, inspired by the strike
and the slogan wrote this poem which was later set to music by Martha
Coleman.
Further information from www.shamash.org/jwa/rose.html - Rose Schneiderman
- Jewish Women's History Week - March 2 - 9, 1997 - in The Jewish Women's
Archive Web Site
"What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply
exist... the worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too."
- Rose Schneiderman
Eight-year-old Rose Schneiderman arrived in New York City from Poland
in 1890 with her parents and three younger brothers. Five years later,
after spending time in an orphanage when her poverty-stricken and recently
widowed mother was unable to feed the family, Schneiderman quit school
to support her mother and baby sister. Her first job in a department
store demanded 64 hours of work for subsistence wages.
It was as a sewing machine operator that Schneiderman organized the
first women's local of the Jewish socialist union, United Cloth, Hat,
Cap and Millinery Workers. "All of a sudden . . . not lonely any
more," Schneiderman had discovered "that poverty was not ordained
. . . working people could help themselves." The energy and companionship
that she found through union organizing fueled Schneiderman's leadership
for the rest of her life, serving as the basis of the "family"
of cross-class women activists who supported her throughout the years
ahead.
Through her forty-five year involvement as a leader of the Women's
Trade Union League, Schneiderman organized countless strikes, trained
young leaders, helped negotiate labor disputes, and worked to establish
continuing education programs for female workers. She was an extremely
popular speaker who travelled throughout the country enlisting support
for labor and women's suffrage. She ran for the United States Senate
in 1920 and was the only woman appointed in Roosevelt's National Recovery
Administration in 1933. Her influence, commitment and persistence were
crucial in drafting and passing much of the legislation that has long
been taken for granted by workers in the United States including: social
security; worker's compensation; the elimination of child labor; maternity
leave; safety laws; minimum wage; and unemployment insurance. |