A preliminary report for one given by comrade Lowe at the 1912 S.P. national convention and a valuable short history of feminist organizing and the National Women’s Committee in the Socialist Party of America’s first decade. Unlike the majority of the Women’s Committee, Lowe, a teacher who later became a lawyer, defended the Left Wing and would become one the I.W.W.’s most determined legal counsels. With portraits of leading women in the Socialist Party of the time.

‘Work of Women in the Socialist Party’ by Caroline A. Lowe from the Progressive Woman. Vol. 5 No. 60. May, 1912.

At the birth of the present Socialist Party, which took place at the unity convention of 1901, there were eight women who attended as regularly elected delegates.

Their influence was that of individual women and not that of representatives of any special movement of unrest or protest among the women of the working class. Such a movement had not yet had time for formation and we find no mention made in the minutes of the convention of woman’s activity in the party organization, or of any need for special propaganda among women. The only mention made of the party’s attitude toward women is in the platform, which demands “equal civil and political rights for men and women.”

Three years later, in the national convention of 1904, the number of women delegates had not increased. California, Oregon, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania each sent one, while Kansas sent two women in a delegation of six.

In the proceedings of this convention also we search in vain for any acknowledgment of the special wrongs or needs of the working woman, or of the necessity for any particular line of work to reach them with the Socialist message and enlist them in the party organization. The Socialist women definitely made their debut in the party organization at the national convention of 1908. Twenty of them appeared upon the floor of the convention as delegates from fourteen states. Each of the twenty had a decided opinion as to the best way to reach her sisters and bring them into the fold.

From the first day to the last no group in the convention was more active and aggressive than were the women. During the years from 1904 to 1908 the Socialist party had awakened to the fact that the “woman question” was a vital, living issue and must receive consideration. So, on the afternoon- of the first day, the Committee on Rules recommended that “a committee on women and their relationship to the Socialist Party shall be elected, to consist of nine members,” and the committee was duly elected.

The report of this committee recommended that a permanent woman’s national committee, consisting of five members, be elected to formulate plans for, and to have charge of, the special work of propaganda and organization among women. It also provided that a special woman organizer be kept permanently in the field.

Not only did the convention adopt the above plans for pushing the work among women, but it also enlarged upon the meager platform demand of 1904 by inserting the plank, “Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women, and we pledge ourselves to engage in an active campaign in that direction.”

The quiet, earnest work of women pioneers had at last born fruit, and woman’s share in the affairs of the party was now officially recognized. It but remained for her to outline her plan of action and put it into effect.

The Woman’s National Committee proceeded to do this in a most efficient manner. A “Plan of Work for Women in Socialist Locals” was prepared and widely circulated. Special leaflets dealing with many phases of the woman question and the industrial conditions particularly affecting women and children were published.

By 1910 the special woman’s work was so well established that the national party congress of that year embodied in the national constitution provisions for its continuance. An amendment which was included in the report of the Committee on Constitution and adopted by the congress, provided that a woman’s national committee, consisting of seven women, be elected in a manner similar to the election of the National Executive Committee, and that it have charge of the propaganda and organization among women. It further provided that all plans of the committee concurred in by the National Executive Committee be carried out at the expense of the National Office.

The closing paragraph of the report of the Woman’s National Committee contained the recommendation that there be installed a Woman’s Department in the National Office and that the manager of this department be one of the regular employes of the office. The report was adopted.

Now, indeed, the women had become a bona fide institution in the party organization. The Woman’s National Committee elected a general correspondent to take charge of the Woman’s Department and the work among women was established upon a permanent basis.

General Results of 1910-11

Much has been accomplished within the past two years. Many local woman’s committees have been organized, hundreds of thousands of leaflets for women have been distributed. Women are serving as secretaries of five states, and of one hundred and fifty-eight locals.

One member of the National Executive Committee, two members of the National Committee and one of the International Secretaries, are women. Fourteen states have women state correspondents. Among our best known national lecturers and organizers, eight are women, and over twenty women have come under our notice as doing exceptionally good work on the Socialist platform in a national way. About two hundred and fifty circular letters were sent out to locals having active women members, requesting answers to certain questions. Thirty-five replies were received.

A summary of the work done by the women in these thirty-five locals shows remarkable activity. But no summary in dollars and cents can measure the actual result of their work. It represents an educational growth that is preparing many thousands of women and young girls to take part intelligently in the class struggle and work side by side with their brothers in winning the emancipation of the working class.

The summary of the reports from these thirty-five committees shows that these locals have a combined membership of 1,677 women. During the year 1911 these committees have held 850 meetings. This does not account for all the woman’s meetings held even in these thirty-five places. In the New York and Chicago reports, only the largest and most important meetings were recorded. Meetings held by the women members in the individual branches were not reported for either of these cities.

During the year 1911 and the latter part of 1910, these committees, through their own efforts raised nearly $10,000, or to be exact, $9,740.00. This is exclusive of the money they helped to raise in the regular work of the locals, $5,893.96 was raised for strike benefits, $866.50 for campaign funds, $529.49 for the support of the Socialist press, $337.35 for assisting in the furnishing of local headquarters, and $214.93 were spent for special literature for women.

When we realize that $10,000 was raised by the women in only thirty-five out of the five thousand Socialist locals and branches in the United States, we can begin to appreciate that from a financial standpoint, if from no other, it is important to enlist the women in the active work as members of the party.

Woman Organizers

At the opening of the Woman’s Department in the National Office, Anna A. Maley was the only national woman organizer sent out by the Woman’s National Committee. Comrade Maley is one of the most capable organizers in the Socialist Party. Her work proved of great service to the committee. Later she gave up the work to become the editor of “The Commonwealth.” Florence Wattles was elected as an organizer for the committee and was assigned to Indiana. As a result of her work in this state, local committees were organized and the woman’s movement given great impetus through the state. In December, 1911, Comrade Wattles began work in Pennsylvania. During her work in that state she has organized several committees and has strengthened not only the work among women, but the general movement as well. The state secretary of Indiana has requested that she be returned to that state for more work, and this has been so arranged. Mary L. Geffs was authorized to do some special work in Colorado, with encouraging results. Janet Fenimore, Prudence Stokes Brown and Madge Patton Stephens have been elected by the committee to serve as woman organizers during the coming campaign.

Among the organizers who have carried on the general propaganda work, a special credit is due to Mila Tupper Maynard, Janet Fenimore. Theresa Serber Malkiel, Ella Reeve Bloor and John M. Work for their earnest efforts to strengthen the movement among the women. In addition to their regular duties, when in the field work, they made a special plea to women to join the party and urged the comrades to elect the women members of the respective locals into committees to carry on the propaganda among women.

They sent into the General Correspondent the names of the active women along the route, thereby enabling the General Correspondent to communicate directly with these women and explain the work to be done in their locality. If all our organizers would adopt this plan the beneficial results upon the organizations would soon be felt.

Woman’s Periodicals

The Progressive Woman is the only Socialist publication for English speaking women in the United States. It has a circulation of about 12,000.

This paper has made a valiant fight for its life, and has received all possible support from the Woman’s National Committee. It has been a great help to the committee and has been one of the means through which so much work has been accomplished.

During 1911, programs for use in Socialist locals were prepared by the committee and published monthly in the Progressive Woman.

In other ways it enabled the Woman’s National Committee to carry on its work and it is today the only woman’s paper for carrying the Socialist message into English speaking homes.

Summary

It has taken but two years for the women to demonstrate the great value of their organized efforts in the work of the Socialist party. The Socialist party realizes as never before the absolute necessity of reaching the women with the message of Socialism. The National Executive Committee, the Woman’s National Committee and the National Office are sparing no effort in educating them to an understanding of their class interests and in bringing them into the party as dues-paying members, having the same duties and the same responsibilities as the men.

The Socialist Woman was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko from 1907 with this aim: “The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women’s lives, from the Socialist standpoint”. In 1908, Conger-Kaneko and her husband Japanese socialist Kiichi Kaneko moved to Girard, Kansas home of Appeal to Reason, which would print Socialist Woman. In 1909 it was renamed The Progressive Woman, and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O’Hare, Alice Stone Blackwell, Eugene V. Debs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. A treat of the journal was the For Kiddies in Socialist Homes column by Elizabeth Vincent.The Progressive Woman lasted until 1916.

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