Quote of the Day: Leonora O’Reilly

"You cannot or will not make laws for us; we must make laws for ourselves. We working women need the ballot for self-protection; that is all there is to it."

Leonora O’Reilly was born in New York on this date in 1870. The daughter of Irish immigrants, she began working in a factory at 11, joined the Knights of Labor at 16, and was a volunteer investigator of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. She was a founding member of the Women’s Trade Union League. This quote is from her testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1912.

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