Wikipedia

Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés

Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés (English: Women's Union to Defend Paris and Care for the Wounded) was a women's group during the 1871 Paris Commune. The union organized working women, ensured a market and fair pay for their work, and participated in the defence of Paris against the troops of the Third Republic, particularly at Place Blanche.

The poster "Call to Female Workers" published by the Paris Commune, 18 May 1871.
Paris Commune: "Call to Female Workers" of 18 May 1871, signed by the members of the executive committee

History edit

It was founded by Elisabeth Dmitrieff[1] on 11 April 1871 in the Larched room (79 Temple Road) in the 10th arrondissement,[2] Dmitrieff, who had been sent to Paris from London by Karl Marx as a representative of the First International, was a member of the central committee and remained general secretary of the Union's executive committee,[3] the only non-elected and non-revocable post of the organization.[4][5] The executive committee was made of seven members. About 130 served in the union's central committee. Actual membership is estimated as being a thousand or more.[6]

In April 1871, the group issued a call to Parisian women to form committees in each arrondissement for a collaborative women's movement in Paris's defense.[7]

In early May, the women's union issued a manifesto calling equal treatment of gender, in line with the Commune's annulment of privileges and inequalities.[8] The union also petitioned the Commune's economic director, Léo Frankel, for work for women. He recommended organizing workshops for women to work at home, to be designed by the women's union. The group investigated the needs of unemployed women and created cooperative workshops. It did not designate roles based on trades but centralized the distribution of orders for women to complete and return to the workshop for delivery.[9] This system differed from the piece-work originally proposed by Commune officials, which would have preserved the order of women staying at home and previous style of labor. The union, instead, organized free producer associations to share out communal profits. They supported variety within trade work, elimination of gendered competition, reduced work hours, and equal pay for equal work.[7]

The Commune's Committee of Public Safety had outlawed women on the battlefield on May 1,[10] but the Union remained committed to its militancy. When a widely published statement attributed to "the women of Paris" appeared later in May, calling for "peace at any price", the Union responded with a manifesto that asserted, "it is not peace, but all-out war that the working women of Paris claim! Today conciliation would be treason! ... The women of Paris will prove to France and to the world that they will also know, at the moment of supreme danger—on the barricades, on the ramparts of Paris, if the reactionaries force the gates—to give as their brothers their blood and their life for the defense and triumph of the Commune, that is to say the people!"[11]

 
Barricade defended by women during semaine sanglante. Lithograph by Moloch [fr]. Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

Known members edit

Executive committee edit

Committee leaders by arrondissement edit

  1. Anne Maillet, seamstress[14]
  2. (none)
  3. Marquant, mechanic
  4. Angelina Sabatier, hatter
  5. Victorine Pievaux, chamareuse
  6. Nathalie Lemel, bookbinder
  7. Octavie Vataire, laundress (lingère)
  8. Marie Picot, unknown
  9. Bessaiche, seamstress
  10. Blanche Lefebvre, laundress (blanchisseuse)
  11. Marie Leloup, seamstress
  12. Foret, seamstress
  13. Chantraile, no profession
  14. Rivière, waistcoat-maker (giletière)
  15. (none)
  16. Aline Jacquier, waistcoat-maker (giletière)
  17. Aglaë Jarry, no profession
  18. Blondeau, gold-polisher
  19. Jeanne Musset, seamstress
  20. Adèle Gauvain, cardboard-maker (cartonnière)

Other members edit

References edit

  1. ^ Eichner 2004, p. 70.
  2. ^ Le Moal, Patrick (11 April 2021). "La Commune au jour le jour. Mardi 11 avril 1871 – CONTRETEMPS". Retrieved 6 September 2021..
  3. ^ Braibant 1993, Part 3, chapter 3 «Dans le regard de l'autre», §13, §17 et §19.
  4. ^ Bard & Chaperon 2017.
  5. ^ Eichner 2004, p. 70-71.
  6. ^ Jones & Vergès 1991, p. 715.
  7. ^ a b Jones & Vergès 1991, p. 721.
  8. ^ Jones & Vergès 1991, p. 718.
  9. ^ Breaugh 2013, pp. 236–237.
  10. ^ Eichner 2004, p. 103-104.
  11. ^ Eichner 2022, p. 80.
  12. ^ a b Claudine Rey, Annie Limoge-Gayat, and Sylvie Pépino, Petit dictionnaire des femmes de la Commune de Paris, 1871: Les Oubliées de l'histoire, Limoges, Le bruit des autres, 2013, p. 297. (ISBN 978-2-35652-085-2).
  13. ^ As of 20 May 1871; Claudine Rey, Annie Limoge-Gayat, and Sylvie Pépino, Petit dictionnaire des femmes de la Commune de Paris, 1871: Les Oubliées de l'histoire, Limoges, Le bruit des autres, 2013, p. 136
  14. ^ All names in this section from Claudine Rey, Annie Limoge-Gayat, and Sylvie Pépino, Petit dictionnaire des femmes de la Commune de Paris, 1871: Les Oubliées de l'histoire, Limoges, Le bruit des autres, 2013, pp. 296-7. (ISBN 978-2-35652-085-2).
  15. ^ Thomas 1963, p. 79-80; Thomas 1966, p. 67.

Bibliography edit

Further reading edit

  • Archer, Julian P. W. (1997). "A Cataclysmic Finale 1870–1871". The First International in France, 1864-1872: its origins, theories, and impact. Lanham: University Press of America. pp. 239–289. ISBN 978-0-7618-0887-9.
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