Background
Wenclawska was born in Poland, and came to the United States with her parents when she was an infant.
Wenclawska was born in Poland, and came to the United States with her parents when she was an infant.
At the age of eleven, she began work as a mill girl in the hosiery industry in Pittsburgh. She also worked as a shop girl in Philadelphia, but when she was nineteen, she caught tuberculosis, and had to quit working for two years. Wenclawska worked as a factory inspector and a trade union organizer in New York City with the National Consumers" League and the National Women"s Trade Union League.
She also gave speeches for the National Woman"s Party.
In 1914, she and Lucy Burns were leaders of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage"s campaign in California to urge voters to oppose Democratic congressional candidates. She did similar work with other organizers in Wyoming during the electoral campaigns of 1916.
In 1917, she was part of the Silent Sentinels protests at the White House, for which she served time in district jail and the Occoquan Workhouse. While in Occuquan, she went on a hunger strike and was force-federal
Wenclawska was also an actress and a poet.
She was portrayed by Vera Farmiga in the 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels.
