Leonora O'Reilly (February 16, 1870 – April 3, 1927) was an American feminist, suffragist, and trade union organizer. O'Reilly was born in New York state, raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. She was born into a working-class family and left school at the age of eleven to begin working as a seamstress. Leonora O'Reilly's parents were Irish immigrants escaping the Great Famine; her father, John, was a printer and a grocer and died while Leonora was the age of one, forcing her mother, Winifred Rooney O'Reilly, to work more hours as a garment worker in order to support Leonora and her younger brother.
O'Reilly worked from 1903 to 1915 an organizer and recruiter for the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL). On the streets of New York, O'Reilly spoke in public for labor reform and women's suffrage; her skills enabled her to represent women in 1911 at a New York Senate Committee on Suffrage as well as in various public meeting halls.
Personal and family life
Family life
Leonora O'Reilly was the daughter of John O'Reilly, a printer and member of the Knights of Labor, and Winifred (Rooney) O'Reilly, an Irish-born dressmaker. John O'Reilly died when Leonora was one year old.
Personal life
At age 16, O'Reilly joined the Comte Synthetic Circle, a self-education group on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Through this group, O'Reilly met her mentor, Victor Drury. Drury was a French-born intellectual, Knights of Labor activist, and anarchist; he had introduced O'Reilly to many books which helped compensate for her lack of formal education. They advocated for Irish independence when Irish men and women were oppressed back home. Within the nationalism movement in Ireland, radical aspects including a worker-centered agenda was called for in America –one that would "restore to producers the fruits of their labor". As a third-generation working woman, O'Reilly justified her right to speak for women in the labor force because of the cumulative experiences of a working mother and grandmother.
Leonora O'Reilly early in her life became engaged with the labor reform and women's suffrage movements and at 16 she joined the Knights of Labor with her mother, Winifred O'Reilly, who soon followed her daughter's lead. Thus, the league was dominated by affluent middle-class women who were educated, had financial ability and political clout. The American Socialists declared IWD to be on the last Sunday of the month of February. This holiday sought to highlight the 'means by which to unite the popular community around a set of common goals', human rights in the form of equal wages, social status, and voting rights for all women. During the years between 1916 and 1923, Irish nationalists sought help from Irish labor movement leaders in the US, as a response to the US support of the British in World War I.
O'Reilly was notable for using her contacts to drive support for boycotts. The first was a boycott by dockworkers who refused to unload British cargoes across major American cities including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Galveston.