Waiting for a Living Wage
Item
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Title
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Waiting for a Living Wage
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Description
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Visual Description:
A woman is pictured at the foot of a black wraith-like figure with the words "starvation" across its chest; it reaches its hand down to her back. The woman's hands and feet are chained to a brick structure. The impoverished woman is shown with her head down and her hands intertwined, meaning she is likely praying for greater pay, to provide for herself and possibly her family. The chains represent the fact that she is unwillingly enslaved and forced to endure such horrible working conditions.
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Contextual Description:
With the help of activists including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, married women in New York State received the right to own property in 1848, but the Married Women's Property Act in Britain wasn't passed until 1870, and British women still did not have complete control over their property until twelve years later.
The woman pictured above may have been a worker in a "sweated industry" in early 20th century Britain, meaning that they worked long hours for low pay, often in unsanitary working conditions. Many women, children and men worked such jobs because of their age, sex, or health conditions, which prevented them from getting better paying work. Suffragists in both the U.K. and the U.S. argued that women workers needed the vote to demand protective legislation for women workers. After years of fighting, women in Britain finally received the vote in 1918, and women in the U.S. in 1920.
The creator of this postcard, Catharine Courtauld, was a prominent suffragist and member of the Suffrage Atelier group, which was founded in 1907. She used her participation in the group and her artistic skills to create propaganda such as this postcard to promote women's suffrage.
Sources:
“Celebrating a Courtauld Suffragette on the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act, 1918.” The Courtauld Institute of Art, 6 Feb. 2018, courtauld.ac.uk/celebrating-courtauld-suffragette-centenary-representation-people-act-1918.
“Property Children.” UK Parliament, www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/overview/propertychildren/.
“The Library Modern Records Centre.” What Were 'Sweated' Industries?, 2019 warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/tradeboard/sweated/.
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Creator
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Catherine Courtauld
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Date
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1913
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Identifier
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An impoverished woman pleading at the foot of starvation for more pay.
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Publisher
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Shepard's Bush, London, United Kingdom
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Rights
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https://library.harvard.edu/privacy-terms-use-copyright-information#visuals
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Source
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Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute Gr-1-16
