利用者:河内蜻蛉/sandbox13

レオノーラ・M・カーニー・バリー(英語: Leonora M. Kearney Barry, 1849年 8月13日 - 1923年 7月18日)はアイルランドのコーク県に、ジョン・カーニーとオーナー・グレンジャー・カーニーの子供として生まれた。労働騎士団(Knights of Labor)で唯一、全国的な役職を得た女性であり、労働改革運動への関与を通じて、女性労働者の状況に注目を集めさせた。また彼女は南北戦争と再建期(Reconstruction era)ののちの時代において、女性の権利の進歩を推し進めた人物でもあった^[1] 。

レオノーラの父、ジョン・カーニー(John Kearney)はアイルランドの農民で、1852年にジャガイモ飢饉から逃れるべく、ニューヨーク州・ピアポント(Pierrepont)に移民した^[2] 。

1864年に、レオノーラの母は若くして死んだ。父親が彼女と5歳しか変わらない女性と再婚したのを機に、レオノーラは師範学校に通うことを決めた。新たな母と彼女の間での緊張関係から逃れるために家を出た後、ニューヨーク州・コルトン(Colton)の女学校の校長と連絡をとり、そこで6週間、個人的に指導を受けた^[3] 。16歳にして、彼女は教員資格をとり、翌年から学校で教えるようになった^[4] 。

1871年11月30日、レオノーラはウィリアム・E・バリー(William E. Barry)と結婚した。彼はアイルランド生まれで、カナダ、そしてニューヨークへと移民した画家・音楽家だった。二人はニューヨーク州・ポツダムに移り、1873年には最初の子、マリオン・フランセス(Marion Frances)をもうけた^[5] 。南北戦争後に教師は人材不足となっていたにもかかわらず、ウィリアム・バリーと結婚したのちに彼女は職場における差別に直面した。彼女は既婚の女性であるということを理由に、州法で教職を辞めなければならなくなったのである。これにより彼女は肉体労働に従事せざるを得なくなった。一家は頻繁に移住し、マサチューセッツ州・ヘイデンスヴィル(Haydensville)や、ニューヨーク州・アムステルダムを転々とした。そして1875年にはウィリアム・スタンディッシュ(William Standish)、1880年にはチャールズ・ジョセフ(Charles Joseph)という二人の子供を授かった。彼女の夫が肺の病気で死に、娘もすぐにその後を追ったので、バリーは針子として働き始めたが、仕事は非常にきついものであった^[5] 。そのため、彼女はアムステルダムの靴下工場で働いたが、ここで彼女やその仲間の女性労働者たちは過酷な労働環境、長時間労働、低賃金に直面した^[6] 。彼女はしばしば週に70時間以上働いたが、給与は成果によって決められたので、初日には11セント、最初の週の給料はたったの65セントであった^[7] 。

働く女性が直面する不正に対して行動を起こすために、バリーは1885年、労働騎士団の地方支部に加入した^[8] 。当時は労働騎士団の全国組織における会員数がピークに達していた時であった。労働騎士団は本来、フィラデルフィアの衣服労働者たちの秘密結社として活動していたが、労働改革を促進するための組合へと変質していた^[5] 。バリーは経済的な必要に迫られて工場労働に従事せざるを得ず、組合の理想的な女性労働者を体現していた^[9] 。

バリーが所属した騎士団の地方支部は当時、1,500人の会員を擁していた^[4] 。彼女は組織の中で成り上がり、まもなく地方支部の長たる、マスター・ワークマンになった^[6] 。1885年、彼女はディストリクト・アセンブリ65の長となったが、ここには42の地方支部と9,000人以上の騎士団員が含まれていた^[10] 。一年後に彼女はオルバニー(Albany)で開かれた地区の会議に出席し、ヴァージニア州・リッチモンドで開かれた労働騎士団のジェネラル・アセンブリでは5人の地区代表のうちの一人を務めた^[4] 。騎士団の全国指導者、テレンス・V・パウダリーの支持を得て、彼女はこの会議の参加者たちによって新設された女性部の代表に選出された^[2] 。(ジェネラル・アセンブリは女性労働者の労働環境についての情報を集める委員会を創設し、その調査結果によって総調査官が主導の女性部を創設した^[4] 。)彼女の役目は「女性の雇用条件を調査し、新たなアセンブリを組織し、同一労働・同一賃金という騎士団の綱領を宣伝し、騎士団に女性を統合する」ことであった^[11] 。彼女は有給の労働調査員及び組織家となった初めての女性であった^[7] 。しかし、同時に「騎士団の中で全国的な役職に就いた唯一の女性」でもあった^[12] 。

As the primary investigator, Barry dedicated her life to improving wages and working conditions for women throughout the United States, traveling across the nation to investigate female working conditions while also serving as the spokesperson for the female laborers.^[6] This complicated her views on traditional female society, for it forced her to leave her children and live in the public sphere.^{[13] [14]} Her reports to the General Assembly in 1887, 1888 and 1889 described the hard conditions in factories, with reports of abuse on women and children. These reports made Barry the first person to collect national statistics on the American working woman.^[5] About 65,000 women belonged to the Knights at this time; the organization offered jobs and affordable goods to women while also organizing boycotts in support of female factory laborers’ interests.^[13] About four hundred of the Knights’ local branches included women; membership in two-thirds of these was limited to women.^[15] Barry, however, found herself unable to build a solid following due to the apathy of working women, divisions within the Knights of Labor, and difficulties faced by a woman attempting to organize men in a male-dominated society.^{[16] [13]} Employers also refused to allow her to investigate their factories.^[5] Due to this employer resistance, organizing women within the movement was a challenge, and often better paid workers were reluctant to join labor movements for fear that their conditions would worsen. As Barry remarked, some women had a "habit of submission and acceptance without question of any terms offered them, with the pessimistic view of life in which they see no ray of hope."^[17] These factors pushed Barry to support state and federal legislation as a means of protecting laborers.^[18] Her efforts in this regard are most visible in the 1889 passage of the first Pennsylvania factory inspection act. Barry, however, would not lobby politicians because she considered such activity "unladylike."^[16] Yet of her more than 500 speeches during the course of her career including her popular speech, "The Dignity of Labor," one 4 July speech in 1888 in particular before three thousand people in Rockford, Illinois prompted the local women's assembly to rename the holiday, "Foremothers’ Day."^[19]

Barry became enmeshed in the Knights' internal political disputes, and became an opponent of General Secretary John Hayes. In 1888 Hayes took control of the Women's Department and harassed Barry, leading to her resignation in 1890.^[20]

Whether her efforts were always successful or not, she left an enduring legacy for the women's rights movement. Barry always kept moving forward amidst setbacks, and she willingly made personal sacrifices for the cause in which she believed. After all, "the movement demanded a difficult choice between more traditional feminine concerns and a significant role in public life."^[9] Given her self-described goal to liberate "from the remorseless grasp of tyranny and greed the thousands of underpaid women and girls in our large cities, who, suffering the pangs of hunger, cold and privation, ofttimes yield and fall into the yawning chasm of immorality," one can understand the motivation and passion that drove her in her cause.^[21]

Barry felt women should not work outside the household except in cases of economic need. Upon her marriage to Obadiah Read Lake in 1890, Barry resigned from her position within the Knights of Labor, bringing an end to the Department of Woman's Work.^[13]

At her resignation from the Knights, she seemed to backtrack on her entire mission by stating, "If it were possible, I wish that it were not necessary for women to learn any trade but that of domestic duties, as I believe it was intended that man should be the bread-winner". While such a sentiment appears contrary to her entire cause, she went on to qualify her statement by adding, "But as that is impossible under present conditions, I believe women should have every opportunity to become proficient in whatever vocation they choose or find themselves best fitted for."^[18] Lake, a trained printer and the proofreader and telegraph editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, resided in St. Louis.^[16]

Barry continued to travel and speak on behalf of the woman's suffrage movement and the temperance movement, among other reform movements, after her retirement in St. Louis.^[6] She persevered in her pursuit of labor equality for women but in a less organized manner. Barry served primarily as a public speaker on issues of reform, as illustrated by her 1893 speech before the World's Representative Congress of Women at the Columbian exposition in Chicago on "The Dignity of Labor."^[10] (Barry never used prepared texts.)^[16] She also proved vital to the successful campaign for woman suffrage in Colorado.^[16]

In 1916 she moved to Minooka, Illinois, and became active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America while also placing much emphasis on building public support for Prohibition and, later, the Volstead Act.^[6] A baseball fan, Barry frequented Chicago to enjoy games.^[16] Later in life known as Mother Lake, Barry died on 18 July 1923, of cancer of the mouth.^[16]

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