Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was an activist of the early U. S. labor movement.
Background
Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was born on January 8, 1864, in Hannibal, Missouri, the second daughter and third of four children of Michael and Mary (Kelly) Kenney. Her parents, both Catholics, had emigrated from Ireland in the early 1850's. They were married in New Hampshire, and soon afterward went west to work on a railroad construction gang, with Kenney as foreman and his wife cooking and serving meals. When their children were born, Kenney got a job in the Burlington Railroad's machine shop in Hannibal. The hardworking Kenneys lived comfortably and enjoyed close ties with their neighbors. The parents were strict but warmly affectionate, and Mary, something of a tomboy, was very close to her father. Her father died in 1878.
Education
Mary O'Sullivan attended a convent school until she "struck" against its arbitrary discipline and transferred to a public school. As was common then, she was apprenticed at an early age to a dressmaker and never completed grammar school.
Career
With the death of her father in 1878, Mary took a job as bookbinder and after four years became a forewoman. When her employer moved to Keokuk, Iowa, she relocated with her now invalid mother. There she saw firsthand the protracted Burlington Railroad strike of 1888, which instilled in her an undying faith in unions. The Keokuk bindery's failure forced Mary Kenney to go to Chicago in search of work, which she quickly found. She was appalled by the squalor of urban life, "the tragedies of meagerly-paid workers, the haunting faces of undernourished children, the filth, the everlasting struggle, and then the whole thing over again. .. ". In response to such conditions, she organized the Chicago Women's Bindery Workers' Union, an offshoot of Ladies' Federal Labor Union No. 2703.
Mary was also elected to the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly, where she assumed an active position of leadership. She became a lifelong friend of Jane Addams after Hull House was opened to union meetings. There Florence Kelley, in conjunction with Mary Kenney, the Chicago Trades Assembly, and others, investigated Chicago's sweatshops, prepared a shocking and widely read report on labor conditions, and, by effectively lobbying in the Illinois legislature, secured the establishment of a Factory Inspection Department in 1893. Mary Kenney then became one of ten inspectors under Florence Kelley.
Meanwhile, in April 1892, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, had appointed Miss Kenney as the Federation's first national woman organizer. She spent June and July organizing women workers in New York City, traveled upstate, and then went to Massachusetts. Despite her commendable efforts, the American Federation of Labour executive council terminated her position in 1893.
While visiting Boston, Mary met John F. O'Sullivan, a fellow American Federation of Labour organizer, a former seaman and streetcar driver, and a widower. They were married on October 10, 1894, in New York City, and made their home in Boston, where John O'Sullivan was labor editor of the Boston Globe. While bearing and rearing her children, Mary O'Sullivan continued to speak and organize. As a member of the board of directors of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston and as executive secretary of the Union for Industrial Progress, she helped bridge the gap between wealthy women and working women. British trade unionists, American labor leaders, and public figures like Louis D. Brandeis were visitors in the O'Sullivan home; Mary later recalled that it "was like the cradle of a new-born movement. And our life there expressed the joy of youth finding comrades in ideals. "
Although her mother and oldest child died and the house burned down, her enthusiasm was undaunted as the O'Sullivans took quarters in nearby Denison House, a social settlement. Her efforts in founding the National Women's Trade Union League represented a culmination of her work in bringing together settlement-house workers and union organizers. During the 1903 convention of the American Federation of Labour in Boston, Mary O'Sullivan and William English Walling drafted the essential structure of the League; she became its first secretary and later first vice-president. The League was a significant agency for reform during the Progressive period.
In 1900, the O'Sullivans moved to suburban Beachmont, "where the children could stretch their legs and play in the sun. " Two years later John O'Sullivan was killed by a train. Although friends, including Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe, found jobs in real estate management that enabled Mary O'Sullivan to support the children and continue her reform efforts, she suffered a breakdown in 1904 and briefly entered a sanitarium. But she was never one to be down long; in 1909 she was able to buy land and build a house for her family in nearby West Medford.
Her enthusiasm and fighting spirit were revitalized during the Lawrence (Massachussets) textile strike of 1912. Already familiar with conditions there, Mary O'Sullivan returned to investigate, endorsed and aided the Industrial Workers of World leadership, and worked to gain support for the strike. At one point she met personally with the intransigent president of the American Woolen Company. Responding partly to conditions at Lawrence, the state of Massachusetts in 1914 created a Division of Industrial Safety (from 1919 part of the Department of Labor and Industries), and from November 1914 until her retirement on January 7, 1934, Mrs. O'Sullivan served as a factory inspector.
Mary never lost her commitment to reform. She vigorously opposed World War I and personally went to New York City to prevent her son from enlisting; subsequently she became a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. A stout supporter of woman suffrage, she was a delegate in 1922 to the national conference of the League of Women Voters. In 1924 she campaigned actively for Robert La Follette when he ran for president as a Progressive.
Mary O'Sullivan died in West Medford of arteriosclerotic heart disease at the age of seventy-nine. After a solemn high requiem mass, she was buried in St. Joseph Cemetery, West Roxbury, Massachussets.
Achievements
All her life Mary O'Sullivan fought for women's labour rights. Her first achievement was organization of Woman's Bookbinding Union Number 1, which later became a branch of the American Federation of Labor. The culmination of Mary's work was founding of the National Women's Trade Union League.
Views
Quotations:
“I refused to do a man’s job without a man’s pay. ”
Membership
Maruy O'Sullivan was a member of the following organizations: Ladies' Federal Labor Union No. 2703; Woman's Bookbinding Union Number 1; The Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly; The Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston; The Union for Industrial Progress; The National Women's Trade Union League; The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Connections
Mary Kenny was married to John F. O'Sullivan, a fellow American Federation of Labour organizer, a former seaman and streetcar driver, and a widower, on October 10, 1894, in New York City, with Gompers as a witness to the civil ceremony. The couple had four children: Kenney, Mortimer, Roger, and Mary Elizabeth.
