22 Facts About Alice Henry

Alice Henry was an Australian suffragist, journalist and trade unionist who became prominent in the American trade union movement as a member of the Women's Trade Union League.

Alice Henry was born on 21 March 1857 in Richmond, Melbourne.

Alice Henry was the daughter of Charles Ferguson Henry, an accountant and his wife Margaret, a garment worker.

Alice Henry had one brother, Alfred, who was born in 1859.

Alice Henry attended several schools in Melbourne, eventually matriculating with credit from Richard Hale Budd's Educational Institute for Ladies in 1874.

Alice Henry became involved with Australian politics in the 1890s, and began to lecture on topics such as women's rights, suffrage and labour.

Alice Henry became closely associated with the progressive movement in Melbourne.

Alice Henry moved to the United States from Australia in 1906 and became office secretary of the Women's Trade Union League in Chicago.

Alice Henry served a variety of jobs within the union including field organiser and director of the education department.

Alice Henry remained involved in writing during her time in America.

Alice Henry edited the women's section of the Chicago Union Labor Advocate and was the founding editor of the Women's Trade Union League's Life and Labor periodical until 1915.

Alice Henry wrote two books, The Trade Union Woman and Women and the Labor Movement.

Alice Henry was invited by Robins to work for the National Women's Trade Union League of America in Chicago as a lecturer and field-worker.

Between 1907 and 1925 Alice Henry served as an editor, publicist and lecturer for the WTUL.

Alice Henry played an active role in mobilising both the middle class as well as trade union support for the League's legislative, educational and organizational goals.

Alice Henry served as an advisory member on committees set up by the National Council of Women and the Victorian Women's Federation.

On 19 May 1911 a suffrage meeting was held at The Pfister Hotel club room, there Alice Henry urged that the best ways to obtain result was to carry out a campaign along intensive lines.

Alice Henry cited that wages and factory conditions have improved and that in general industries had become more humanised.

Alice Henry did admit that the women had not been the only factor in these changes but that the increased power in women had a materially role in aiding these changes.

Alice Henry retired to Santa Barbara, California in 1928 after completing a lecture and investigation tour in Britain.

Alice Henry continued her work later in life, and compiled a bibliography of Australian woman writers in 1937.

Alice Henry died on 14 February 1943 in a hospital in Melbourne.