Maud Younger
{{short description|American suffragist, feminist, and labor activist}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| image = MaudYounger.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Maud Younger, c. 1910–15.
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1870|01|10}}
| birth_place = San Francisco, California
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1936|06|25|1870|01|10}}
| death_place = Los Gatos, California
| nationality =
| other_names =
| occupation =
| known_for = Suffragist, Labor activist
}}
Maud Younger (January 10, 1870 – June 25, 1936) was an American suffragist, feminist, and labor activist.
Early life
Maud Younger was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of a Scottish immigrant, dentist William John Younger. Her mother Anna Maria Lane, an heiress, died when Maud was twelve years old.[http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00782.html Susan Englander. "Younger, Maud," American National Biography Online (February 2000).] It was a prosperous, well-connected family; two of her sisters married Austrian barons, and her father moved to Paris in 1900.[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1910-03-31/ed-1/seq-5/ "Baroness' Will Filed for Probate," San Francisco Call (March 31, 1910): 5.] Maud Younger was educated in San Francisco and New York.
At 31, she visited the New York College Settlement House, and began her work in activism.
"I went to see it, stopped for a week, and stayed five years," she recalled.Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism (Yale University Press 1987): p. 34
Labor activism
Younger took up the cause of working women. She took several waitressing jobs to investigate working conditions in restaurants, and joined the New York Waitresses' Union.Maud Younger, "Diary of an Amateur Waitress: An Industrial Problem from the Worker's Point of View," McClure's Magazine 28(1907): 543–552. She was referred to as
Suffrage activism
Younger traveled to New York to support striking garment workers in 1913, and happened to be in town to give a memorial keynote speech at the 1916 funeral of Inez Milholland Boissevain.Linda J. Lumsden, Inez: The Life and Times of Inez Milholland (Indiana University Press 2004): p. 175. She supported the suffrage movement in Nevada and in the South (her mother was from New Orleans), and joined the Congressional Union, the more militant suffrage organization headed by Alice Paul, later named the National Woman's Party. Younger served as chair of the lobbying committee and participated in NWP pickets at the White House demanding women's suffrage.
Later work
File:Miss Maud Younger-12-16-20.jpg
In late 1920, Maud Younger drove across the country alone, with a dog named Sandy; this trip made her one of the first women to do a solo coast-to-coast drive across America, the very first being Anita King. The trip from San Francisco to Washington DC took 38 days, hampered by excessive rain. She arrived in Washington on 20 December 1920.Thomas L. Karnes, Asphalt and Politics: A History of the American Highway System (McFarland 2009): pp. 21–23. After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment secured the right to vote for American women, Younger (and others) turned to advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment. Younger died from cancer in Los Gatos, California, in 1936, age 66.
Her unpublished autobiography is in the National Woman's Party Papers, at the Library of Congress.
References
{{Reflist}}
=Further sources and links=
{{Commons category|Maud Younger}}
- Susan Englander, Class Conflict and Class Coalition in the California Woman Suffrage Movement, 1907–1912: The San Francisco Wage Earners' Suffrage League (1992).
- {{cite book|last=Harris|first=Gloria G.|author2=Hannah S. Cohen|title=Women Trailblazers of California: Pioneers to the Present|chapter=Chapter 3. Suffragists – Maud Younger: Millionaire Waitress and Labor Reformer|pages=43–59 [52–55]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U4x2CQAAQBAJ|year=2012|location=Charleston, SC|publisher=The History Press|isbn=978-1609496753}}
- April McDonald, "Maud Younger 1870–1936: A California Woman as Labor Reformer, Suffragist, and Activist," masters' thesis (California State University 1994).
- [http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/maud-younger/ Maud Younger] in the National Women's History Museum
- [http://www.sewallbelmont.org/womenwecelebrate/maude-younger/ Maud Younger] in the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum
- Mae Silver, [http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Championing_the_Working_Woman "Championing the Working Woman"], at FoundSF.
- {{cite book|title=Women Trailblazers of California: Pioneers to the Present|isbn=978-1609496753|pages=52–55|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pzkcBjl2OXoC|author=Gloria G. Harris, Hannah S. Cohen|access-date=22 July 2014|year=2012|publisher=History Press }}
- {{cite news|title=Miss Younger Dies: Suffrage Leader: Chief Lobbyist in Washington in Last Years of Fight to Win Vote for Women. Was White House Picket Converted to Movement by Her Experience as a Settlement Worker on East Side|agency=New York Times|work=New York Times|date=1936|id={{ProQuest|101865198}}}}
- {{cite news|title=Her Pressure on Congress: Suffrage Lobbyist's Card Index Keeps Tab on Members' Home Influences, Financial Backers, and Even Golf Partners Her Pressure on Congress – Suffragist's Card Index Changing Senate Votes|work=The New York Times|date=1919|id={{ProQuest|100345073}}}}
- {{cite news|title=Suffrage Index of God and Bad Governors: How the Card System Which Forced Congress Into Line Is Being Used to Expedite Ratification by States|work=The New York Times|date=1919|id={{ProQuest|100333213}}}}
{{Silent Sentinels}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Younger, Maud}}
Category:Suffragists from California
Category:American women's rights activists
Category:American trade union leaders