Leonora O'Reilly

Leonora O’Reilly
150pxAugust 22, 20082
BornFebruary 16, 1870
New York City
DiedApril 3, 1927
OccupationLabor leader
ChildrenAlice O'Reilly (adopted 1907, died 1911)
Parent(s)John O'Reilly (father), Winifred (Rooney) O'Reilly (mother)

Leonora O’Reilly (February 16, 1870 – April 3, 1927) was an American feminist, suffragist, and trade union organizer. O'Reilly was born in New York state, raised in the Lower East Side of New York City. She was born into a working-class family and left school at the age of eleven to begin working as a seamstress. Leonora O’Reilly’s parents were Irish immigrants escaping the Great Famine; her father, John, was a printer and a grocer and died while Leonora was the age of one, forcing her mother, Winifred Rooney O’Reilly, to work more hours as a garment worker in order to support Leonora and her younger brother.[1]

O’Reilly worked from 1903 to 1915 an organizer and recruiter for the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). On the streets of New York, O’Reilly spoke in public for labor reform and women’s suffrage; her skills enabled her to represent women in 1911 at a New York Senate Committee on Suffrage as well as in various public meeting halls.[2]

  1. ^ Weir, Robert (2013). Workers in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 558–561, 851. ISBN 9781598847185.
  2. ^ Mattina, Anne F. (Spring 1994). ""Rights as well as duties": The rhetoric of Leonora O'Reilly". Communication Quarterly. 42 (2): 196–205. doi:10.1080/01463379409369926.

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