Details

Abstract / Summary

TITLE: Demand! DESCRIPTION: Typescript kept in the papers of Mrs. Oszkár Szirmai (born Irma Reinitz, 1867-1958), leader of the child protection division of the Feminist Association (Feministák Egyesülete), the leading liberal-progressive women’s organization in Hungary at the time. The “Demand!” in all likelihood is authored by Mrs. Szirmai. It addresses “our brothers and sisters” with the request to contribute to the wartime effort of the Association by ordering and paying for goods that can be produced by “your poor sisters” in doing homework. This effort fulfills a double purpose: It generates “well paid” work for poor women, if only “in small doses so as to be able to include everybody,” while, later on, those who have ordered and paid for the work shall “give” what has been produced “as a present to those in need.” The “Demand” mentions winter cloth and simple cloth for women, children and babies as examples. The association had received a number of large orders, for instance for children’s clothes or wristlets, yet it was in dire need for new orders since “in the hours when work distribution takes place,” in the rooms of the school in Nagydiófa Street 8 in Budapest, “the clientele is as large as if warm cakes of new bank notes were distributed, whereas in reality it is only work which is distributed there.” The Demand mentions that the activities of the association have always been oriented towards social rather than charitable work, referring to the association’s counseling activities with regard to work and employment. Yet, the war has generated such manifold miseries that help now must be given “quickly and in reliable manner by action rather than through the word” alone. KEYWORDS: Women and Institutions of Empire; World War I; Social Reform and Political Activism Welfare Movements; War Time Relief Work; Work and Class Identity; Generation of Work for Poor Women; Habsburg Empire; Hungary

Field of Interest

Women and Social Movements

Author

Irma Szirmai, 1868-1958

Collection

Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820

Content Type

Essay

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

2

Subject

Women and Social Movements, History, Women and Work, Women and War, World War I, 1914-1918, Mujer y Trabajo, Mulher e Trabalho, Mujer y Guerra, Mulher e Guerra, Hungría, Hungary, Women, Colonization, Empire, and Post Coloniality, Work and Class Identity, Indigenous Women, Empire and Family Life, Sexual Division of Labor, Social Movements and Indigenous Women, Hungarians, 20th Century in World History (1914--2000)

Topic

Empire and Family Life, Sexual Division of Labor, Social Movements and Indigenous Women

Keywords and Translated Subjects

Mujer y Trabajo, Mulher e Trabalho, Mujer y Guerra, Mulher e Guerra, Hungría