24 Facts About Marie Guillot

Marie Guillot was a teacher in Saone-et-Loire and a pioneer of trade unionism in primary education.

Marie Guillot associated the social emancipation that syndicalism would bring with the empowerment of women.

Marie Guillot was active in the struggle of the anarchists, who believed in a decentralized or federal organization of workers' syndicates, against the communists who believed in a central organization.

Marie Guillot was born in September 1880 at Damerey, in the Bresse region of the department of Saone-et-Loire, where her family was rooted.

Marie Guillot was a good student at school, instructed by a lay teacher.

Marie Guillot gained the Brevet superieur, the qualification needed for minor public service.

In 1899 Marie Guillot became a primary school teacher, and was able to support her mother.

Marie Guillot remained single, sharing her energies between teaching and trade union activities.

Marie Guillot agreed with the anarcho-syndicalists that future society would be organized into syndicates.

Marie Guillot was among the subscribers to the small journal La Vie ouvriere published by the Confederation generale du travail.

From 1910 Marie Guillot participated in drafting and disseminating L'Ecole emancipee, a weekly educational magazine published by the National Federation of Unions of male and female teachers of France and the colonies.

Marie Guillot saw the struggle by women for equality as having the same importance as her political and union engagements.

Marie Guillot used the weekly The Saone-et-Loire Socialist to disseminate feminist demands.

Marie Guillot was comforted by Romain Rolland's Au-dessus de la melee, by the attitude of Pierre Monatte with whom she corresponded throughout the war, and by the pronouncements of other teachers for peace.

Marie Guillot was questioned several times but was not arrested during the war.

Marie Guillot was one of 350 delegates representing 12,000 members divided into 68 unions.

Marie Guillot donated a large part to her union to cover the cost of legal action.

Marie Guillot was elected by 24 votes against 19 for the outgoing secretary Jean-Marie Thomas, a teacher, and the future socialist deputy of Chalon-sur-Saone between 1928 and 1940.

Marie Guillot was among the delegates who voted for the motions of the revolutionary syndicalists.

At the 15th Congress of the Federation of secular education, held in Paris from 18 to 20 August 1921, Marie Guillot was elected Secretary General.

Marie Guillot was elected at a key moment for French syndicalism, when Leon Jouhaux's administrative measures of exclusion were being enacted.

Marie Guillot was not among the provisional leadership of the union structure that implemented the CGTU, dominated by the anarchists.

In June 1924, Marie Guillot was reinstated as a teacher.

Marie Guillot returned to Saone-et-Loire, unionism, the schoolhouse and the life of the feminist union groups.