Ernestine Louise Rose and Sanité Bélair

Rebellious Daughters of History #27 by Judy Cox Agitating for Reform: Ernestine Louise Rose (1810 – 1892) Rose Potowska was born in Poland. Her father was a wealthy rabbi and she later recalled, “I was a rebel at the age of five”. When she was 16, her father betrothed her to an older man. Rose […]

Sarah Chapman and Vera Ivanovna Zasulich

Rebellious Daughters of History #26 by Judy Cox Striking a Light: Sarah Chapman (1862-1945) Sarah was born in 1862 to Samuel Chapman, a brewer and sometime docker, and Sarah Ann Mackenzie. Sarah and her six siblings grew up in Mile End and could all read and write. By the age of 19, Sarah worked with […]

Louise Bryant and Assata Shukar

Rebellious Daughters of History #25 by Judy Cox The Red: Louise Bryant (1885 –1936) Louise grew up in rural Nevada and attended the University of Nevada and the University of Oregon, graduating with a degree in history in 1909. She became a journalist and an activist in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1915, she met […]

Jayaben Desai and Dorothy Parker

Rebellious Daughters of History #24 by Judy Cox ‘We are Lions’’: Jayaben Desai (1933 – 2010) Jayaben Desai was born in 1933 in Gujarat, India. She later migrated to Britain, where she took up low-paid work, first as a sewing machinist, then processing film in the Grunwick factory. There was no union allowed at Grunwick, […]

Ella May Wiggins and Mary Heaton

Rebellious Daughters of History #23 by Judy Cox Labour Movement Martyrs and their Stories: Ella May Wiggins (1900 – 1929) and Mary Heaton (1874-1966) Ella May was born Sevierville, Tennessee, in 1900 and by 1926 she had settled in an African-American neighbourhood in Gaston County. Her neighbours looked after her nine children as she worked […]