17 Facts About Jennie Collins

Jane "Jennie" Collins was an American labor reformer, humanitarian, and suffragist.

Jennie Collins was active in the abolitionist and labor movements, volunteered in military hospitals during the Civil War, and founded a charity for poor working women in Boston.

Jennie Collins was born into poverty in Amoskeag, New Hampshire, in 1828.

Jennie Collins was an admirer of the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who was preaching in Boston at the time.

Jennie Collins was deeply interested in Spiritualism, a religious movement that was linked with labor and women's rights.

Jennie Collins was an outspoken opponent of slavery, as was Parker.

Jennie Collins made her first major public address in 1868, at Washington Hall, in support of women's rights.

Jennie Collins approached the subject from a distinctly working-class perspective, much as Margaret Foley did decades later.

Jennie Collins's reputation grew, and she became one of Boston's leading speakers on issues such as child labor reform, the eight-hour day, and better wages and working conditions for women.

Jennie Collins's speech at the Union League Hall in Washington was a "decided success".

Jennie Collins knew that charitable work could not address the underlying causes of poverty, and she continually tried to do more.

Meanwhile, Jennie Collins had the more immediate needs of her "girls" to attend to.

Jennie Collins contributed most of the proceeds from her book, Nature's Aristocracy, edited by Russell Conwell and published in 1871.

Jennie Collins was one of the first working-class women in the United States to publish a volume of her own writings.

Jennie Collins wrote movingly of the plight of working mothers who had no access to affordable child care, women who were paid starvation wages, and girls who were cheated of their pay.

Jennie Collins's contemporaries were apt to describe her in terms at once unflattering and admiring: unrefined and pugnacious; intelligent, witty, and kind-hearted.

Jennie Collins contributed prolifically to newspapers and journals, as well as publishing annual reports for Boffin's Bower.