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"Happy" Index

8th of March

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March Index

Happy International (Working) Women's Day!

Celebrated since 1910, now an official holiday of the UN & a public holiday in China, Cuba, Mauritania, Mongolia, (& erstwhile USSR.) It commorates the New York City women garment workers march of 3/8/1857. This was a momentous and landmark event and should be so celebrated. Perhaps because of the following economic & political turmoil of the era, however, it seems totally ignored in song and also by Americans in general. In fact, the women's struggle seems largely ignored by the songwriters of the unions & the movement.

Look, I stand ready to be flamed, but I had a (non-exhaustive) look through Silber, Seeger, Lomax (Hard-Hit) Foner (Amer. Labor Songs of the 19th Cent.). I found nothing about the March and damn little about women at all. Sure, there's "Union Maid," but there she's just a sexist-drawn cartoon: at best a "pretty little Union queen" or worse, merely advised to "Get you a man who's a union man, And join the Ladies' Auxiliary."

No song today. Sorry.

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