Women’s History Month fittingly opens with International Women’s Day, March 8.
On March 8, 1908, 15,000 women workers marched through New York’s Lower East Side demanding shorter hours, better pay, a needle trades union, and the right to vote. Their bold action was noted two years later at an International Conference of Working Women, where German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed commemorating it on March 8 every year. That’s how International Women’s Day got started.
In that spirit, People’s Weekly World editorial board member Roberta Wood, herself a former electricial worker, asked some of her sister trades women to send us book recommendations for Women’s History Month. Below are their suggestions, and a few others. (See last week’s list at www.pww.org/article/view/14602)
“The Awakening,” “ by Kate Chopin
Three books of poetry by Sue Doro, a retired machinist: “Blue Collar Goodbyes,” “Of Birds and Factories” and “Heart, Home and Hard Hats”
And three by trades woman Susan Eisenberg: “It’s a Good Thing I’m Not Macho: a cycle of poems,” “Pioneering Poems from the Construction Site” and “We’ll Call You if We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction”
“Ripening,” by Meridel Le Sueur
“Ella Enchanted,” by Gail Carson Levine
“Hard Hatted Women: Life on the Job,” edited by Molly Martin
“When We Were Colored; a mother’s story,” by Eva Rutland
An African American mother’s life in the years “before integration, before affirmative action — when segregation was the norm, discrimination was legally tolerated, and blacks were second-class citizens” (from the introduction).
“Silences,” by Tillie Olsen
“Apprenticeship Survival Guide: Surviving Your Apprenticeship with Style, Grace and Humor!” by Deborah Yates
— Sue Doro, Susan Flashman, Gail Ryall, Sue Smorodin
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