The Universal Struggle for Agency: Connecting Somerset Suffragettes to Budapest’s Textile Workers
Branching Out: From Somerset Suffrage to Austro-Hungarian Textiles 👑🧵
Helen G. Pugh’s historical research consistently champions the idea that "herstory" is a worldwide tapestry woven from the threads of female resilience—whether that is the political power of an Inca queen or the activism of a Somerset suffragette. To further branch out the narrative of the Intrepid Herstory Collective, we can draw a direct thematic line from the fight for the vote in Britain to the complex, class-divided struggle for women’s political and economic rights in the late Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The core link? The working woman who understood that economic equality could not exist without political power.
The Dual Battle for Hungarian Suffrage
In Hungary, the struggle for women's suffrage was less noisy than the explosive campaign led by the British Suffragettes. However, it was deeply significant. This movement was characterized by two parallel, yet often distinct, forces:
The Middle-Class Feminists (The FE)
Led by educated women, often from the Jewish bourgeoisie, groups like the Feministák Egyesülete (FE – Hungarian Feminist Association) championed equal political rights and educational reform. Key figures like Rózsa Schwimmer (Rosika Bédy-Schwimmer) were highly active, pushing for suffrage through publications, petitions, and international congresses. Their primary focus was on legally challenging patriarchal norms and gaining access to universities and the political sphere.
The Proletarian Movement (The Textile Workers)
Unlike the middle-class feminists, the majority of Hungarian women found their voice in the labor movement. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw rapid industrialization. The textile and light manufacturing industries became massive employers of female labor. With women making up to 86% of the workforce in garment factories.
The factory floor became a crucial battleground. These women faced grueling shifts, inferior earnings, and dangerous conditions, leading to widespread strikes and organized labor protests. In cities like Budapest and Vienna, women's mass participation in these industrial actions became a political force. Driven by basic economic necessity.
The Intersection of Labor and the Vote
The crucial connection—and the new thematic thread for the Collective—lies in the occasional collaboration between these two groups. Adding a vital layer to the Herstory Worldwide Tapestry:
- From Wages to the Ballot: As demonstrated by the very first stirrings of the Austrian women's movement in 1848, the initial protest was over inferior wages. Working-class women quickly realized that their economic vulnerability was directly linked to their lack of a political voice (suffrage).
- The Shared Banner of Universal Suffrage: While the middle-class feminists often focused on the rights of educated women, the working-class movement (often affiliated with the Social Democrats) demanded universal suffrage for all citizens, regardless of class or being female.
- Rózsa Schwimmer's Bridge: Key leaders like Rózsa Schwimmer understood this link. Before founding the FE, she was instrumental in establishing the National Association of Women Office Workers. Demonstrating a direct connection between the feminist leadership and organized female labor. Furthermore, middle-class feminists sometimes collaborated with rural female agricultural workers—a clear parallel to industrial labor—to build a unified front for the cause of the vote.
By focusing on the Austro-Hungarian working woman in the textile industry, the Intrepid Herstory Collective highlights the universal truth woven into the Herstory Worldwide Tapestry. That the fight for female agency is never one-dimensional: it is a convergence of demands for cultural power (Inca queens), women's suffrage and political rights (Somerset suffragettes), and economic justice (Budapest textile workers).