How Did The International Women's Day Come About?

The International Women's Day is a holiday celebrated worldwide. It honors hardworking women and their struggles. It's believed that women's place in history is relatively unrecognized. So it should be inspire and give American women pride to know that the International Women's Day originally was dedicated to commemorate two famous U.S. all-women strikes.

It was the 8th of March, 1857 when New York garment workers marched to demand better working conditions, a ten hour shifts, and equal rights for women.

After 51 years, March 8, 1908, garment workers marched once more to honor the 1857 march, demanding the vote, and to put an end to child labor and sweat shops.

In the year 1910, at the Second International, Clara Zetkin, a world-renowned German socialist, proposed that March 8th officially celebrated as the International Women's Day. Being a revolutionary theoretician, she argued on women's rights; the Kaiser considered her the most vicious sorceress in the empire.

The labor struggle in the United States is invigorating, but it's traditionally concentrated on men. Looking in the past, it does show that women carried their weight, and still covered their shares by also supporting men. After realizing that women's needs were often ignored, they've formed feminine caucuses or all-female unions.

Women's Day Flowers also show how festive the day is. It was 1820 when the first all-female strike took place in the New England tailoring trades. For most townsfolk, seeing women striking to demand improved conditions, decent wages, and decreased shift hours, was an amusement. They weren't taken seriously.

But the most popular of the early strikes happened in Massachusetts, in the Lowell cotton mills. Here young women were involved. They worked eighty-one hours weekly for a mere $3. Of which one dollar and a quarter goes directly for their room and boarding at the Lowell company houses.

Also, the factories originally opened at 7 am. But after noticing that the young women were less "energetic" if they were able to eat before working, they changed the opening time to 5 am, with a breakfast break of one and a half hour at 7 a.m.

After a handful of wage cuts, the Lowell women bailed out in 1834. Only to come back to work several days later to the same reduced rates. They were brave but the company was powerful - stating that a poor record could lead to blacklisting or disciplinary action.

The walked out again after two years, singing:

"Oh, isn't it a pity such a pretty girl as I should be sent to the factory to pine away and die."

This is just a minute fraction of the American working women. More strikes had happened during the Civil war. All of which contributed to inspire the International Women's Holiday.