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The Woman Worker was a magazine published by the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW) from 1907 to 1910.[1][2] It was initially edited by the president of the NFWW Mary Macarthur and published monthly.[3] It was the only publication of its time aimed at working women as its primary audience[3] and covered a broad range of subjects from fashion and literature to suffrage, feminism and socialist politics.[1][2]
In 1908, with the involvement of socialist campaigner and journalist Robert Blanchford, it began to be published weekly and to move beyond the affairs of NFWW to attract a broader readership.[2][3] Macarthur ceased to be editor in December 1908 complaining of ‘the chains of office’, that ‘riveted me oft-times to my desk when I would fain have been a-fighting in the open field’.[3]
During this time, The Woman Worker shared contributors and editors with Blatchford’s own socialist paper the Clarion but was discontinued in 1910 due to low circulation.[2][3] In an attempt to boost circulation it was rebranded as Women Folk in February 1910 before ceasing publication in the Summer of that year.[2]
It was successfully resurrected as a trade union paper in 1916 with Macarthur again as its editor.[3] Its circulation now increased due to greater union membership during the First World War with NFWW branches established at munitions factories.[3]
"It also included literature, which was considered essential to ‘the making and carrying out of plans of social salvation’ (Ellen Creak, The Woman Worker, volume 2, 1907). Poems, short stories, serialised novels and, on occasion, plays were used to entertain and educate readers."
though soon moved away from its origins and became
References
edit- ^ a b EditorMC (2022-07-18). "Jay Kerslake (Leeds) on the role of poetry in The Woman Worker". Society for the Study of Labour History. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
- ^ a b c d e Green, Barbara (2012). "Complaints of Everyday Life: Feminist Periodical Culture and Correspondence Columns in The Woman Worker, Women Folk and The Freewoman". Modernism/modernity. 19 (3): 461–485. doi:10.1353/mod.2012.0055. ISSN 1080-6601.
- ^ a b c d e f g Hunt, Cathy (2013). "BINDING WOMEN TOGETHER IN FRIENDSHIP AND UNITY?: Mary Macarthur and The Woman Worker , September 1907 to May 1908". Media History. 19 (2): 139–152. doi:10.1080/13688804.2013.791422. ISSN 1368-8804.