The Militant
She worked as a bookbinder and retailer in Paris, and then became a socialist activist. In 1864, the International Workers Association (IWA, aka First International) was created in London in the midst of the agitated social climate in Europe. In August 1864, the bookbinders all went on strike in the middle of a very large conflict, where one of the best known militants was Eugène Varlin. In 1865, Nathalie Lemel joined the First International. When a new strike was called, she was a member of the strike committee and was elected union delegate, which was a rare position for a woman to hold in those days. She distinguished herself by her determination and organisation: she fought notably for the equality of salaries between men and women. According to a police report,
| “ | She was noticed because of her intense excitement and her political activism; in the workshops, she read bad newspapers aloud; she assiduously frequented the clubs. | ” |
This was in addition to her strong opposition to the Second Empire. In 1868, she left her home and family (mainly because of her husband's alcoholism), which did not help her reputation in the eyes of conservatives and the police. This increased freedom intensified her political activism: with Varlin and the other bookbinders, she participated in the creation of "The Housewife" ("La Ménagère"), a co-op, and "The Pot" ("La Marmite"), an open restaurant (that would account for four establishments in all for 8000 workers). She was employed there to prepare meals.
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Famous quotes containing the word militant:
“We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.”
—Nicolai A. Berdyaev (1874–1948)
““I” is a militant social tendency, working to hold and enlarge its place in the general current of tendencies. So far as it can it waxes, as all life does. To think of it as apart from society is a palpable absurdity of which no one could be guilty who really saw it as a fact of life.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)