Isabella Baumfree was born in 1797. On June 1, 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth. Truth was one of the main leaders of the abolition movement and an early women's rights activist. She became a Methodist and preached on the abolition of slavery. In 1844, she joined an organization which supported women's rights along with religious tolerance and pacifism. Women were considered the property of their husbands. “What happened to a woman’s wages or property holdings in marriage: They were turned over to the husband. In marriage, early nineteenth-century American women forfeited their legal and economic existence” (Reynolds Walt Whitman: Lives and Legacies 111). In the late 1840s she got highly involved with abolitionist movement and …show more content…
The petition came to no result and in October 1844 the workers organized a region-wide convention to petition for a 10-hour workday. This convention led to the formation of the New England Workingmen’s Association (NEWA) whose meetings centered on the issue of a ten-hour workday. At that time, women worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day in the Lowell textile mills. In December of 1844 the mill workers led by Sarah G. Bagley (1805–1883) founded the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was the first union of working women in the United States and joined the struggle for a ten-hour day. LFLRA became a member of NEWA. LFLRA was one the first organizations of working women in the United States to bargain collectively to improve the conditions of working women. It was also one of the first American labor organizations organized for women and run completely by women themselves. It started by twelve operatives; within a few months its membership grew to six hundred. It was an important contribution of women’s labor groups in the struggle for a ten-hour workday. It published its own newspaper The Voice of Industry. It was not limited to labor issues such as work hours, working conditions, higher pay and health conditions; women’s rights were also a prominent concern for LFLRA. While middle-class women activists were not usually approved by the opposite sex, the operatives associated with LFLRA were supported by working-class