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Felipa Origins: Bread and roses (47) RE: Origins: Bread and roses 02 May 23


are Martha Coleman and Caroline Kohlsaat names for the same composer??? [I've found an article saying attribution to Martha Coleman is erroneous: https://peacenews.info/node/10581/radical-music-bread-and-roses ]

"Caroline Kohlsaat was first to write a tune for it, in 1917. It appeared in a Rebel Songbook in 1935 (incorrectly credited to Martha Coleman)."
"... it wasn’t until Mimi Fariña adapted a new tune in 1974 that the song really took off. Mimi and Joan Baez (her sister) sang the song together. Judy Collins released it on her 1976 Bread and Roses album, reaching a much wider audience. Other less-widely-sung tunes followed, including by Leon Rosselson, Utah Philips and John Denver."

Hear the older tune and read some background notes (quoted below) at
https://jamesconnollyupstatenyiww.bandcamp.com/track/bread-roses-james-oppenheim-martha-coleman

Schneiderman linking universal suffrage and workers' rights:
"the concept phrase, 'bread and roses' was coined by socialist, unionist and suffragist Rose Schneiderman in a speech in which she advocated for the right to vote and for every woman’s right to 'life, and the sun and music and art.' She said 'What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist... The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.'"

more about the connection with the textile workers' strike in Lawrence, Mass:
"The phrase became forever associated with workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts who went out on strike in 1912, a strike led by IWW fellow workers, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Bill Haywood, and Joseph Ettor. The successful strike became known as the 'Bread and Roses Strike.' Although there is no photographic record, Upton Sinclair included Oppenheim’s poem in his 1915 anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest and made the reference that connected the two for all time, 'In a parade of strikers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, some young girls carried a banner inscribed, We want Bread, and Roses too!'"


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