Obama Makes Volunteering the Law

When I first pitched this story, I thought it would be interesting to share an informative biographical sketch of the woman who ideated what was at first called Woman’s Day in the United States. Women's Day was originally celebrated the last Sunday in February--and became the forerunner to global phenomenon International Women’s Day, now celebrated March 8. It also became a lesson in why we celebrate it and celebrate Women’s History Month.

This woman was Theresa Serber Malkiel. According to the Jewish Women’s Archive, she was “the first woman to rise from factory work to leadership in the Socialist Party” in the United States. For decades, she advocated for women’s suffrage, women’s labor rights, and women’s rights to participate in the Socialist Party. She wrote a work of fiction in 1910 called The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker that was considered one of the inciting influences to factory and labor reform in the U.S. (you can read it online here) and was published a year before the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. With her husband, she co-founded The New York Call, a Socialist newspaper, and wrote extensively for it and at least once contributed to The New York Times. In her later years, she advocated for women’s education and even ran for New York State Assembly (it’s reported that she "lost by a small margin").