Emma Miller

Emma Miller ( born June 26, 1839 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, United Kingdom, † January 22, 1917 in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia) was a suffragette, a pacifist, trade unionist and a founding member of the Australian Labor Party.

Personal

Emma Miller grew up in a family Unitarian faith and was active in England with her father in the Chartist movement, a movement that fought for workers' rights. Her father was an active Chartist, who influenced her political career strong. Miller worked in Manchester twelve hours a day, six days a week, married three times in her life, had four children and moved in March 1879 made ​​to Queensland, where she worked as a shirt maker and seamstress.

Policy and trade union

Emma Miller was 1894-1905 President of the Woman's Equal Franchise Association ( WEFA ), which for the equality of women with the slogan " one woman, one vote " ( German: " a woman, one vote" ) began. Women had equal rights according to the Federal Electoral Act of April 9, 1902 before the law and could only choose in Australia on the occasion of the first national election in Australia in 1903. From the WEFA the conservative Queensland Woman's Christian Temperance Union split off, which was led by Eleanor Trundle, who was defeated by Emma Miller in the election as President. Furthermore, the Queensland Woman 's Suffrage League split off from the WEFA, which was led by Léontine Cooper because - according to the opinion of Cooper - WEFA to closely oriented to the Australian labor movement and they sought a broader alliance woman. However, the three organizations worked together at points.

In September 1890 Emma Miller founded the first union for women in Brisbane, which was supported by William Lane, who edited the magazine Workers in Brisbane. In the same year was used on their own initiative, an official commission of inquiry, a Royal Commission, which investigated the garment factories and sewing workshops Queensland. These were by Miller because of the prevailing poor working conditions as sweatshops ( German: sweat shops ) called.

In 1908 she was one of two women who participated as delegates at a national conference of the Australian Labor Party in 1908, this was the second time ever that women were there delegated.

She assisted in the shearers' strike of 1891, the twelve union leaders who had been arrested by the government and sentenced to long prison terms on the infamous prison island of St. Helena in Brisbane to do hard labor.

Emma Miller in 1903, the Women Workers' Political organization in which she was President. After the election, she resigned as President and founded in Brisbane a the Political Labour Council, and sat down again for women's suffrage for the parliamentary elections in Queensland on January 25, 1905 successfully. In the following years she was active at events and as a speaker for the Australian Workers ' Union of Queensland.

She became famous in the course of the general strike in Brisbane in 1912, in which there were violent clashes of protesters with the police. When Emma Miller in a demonstration on February 2, 1912 of 15,000 people, a group of 600 women led and was attacked by mounted police, which should disperse the demonstration, the women beat them with their umbrellas on a horse. Miller, then 73 years old, stabbed with her hatpin on a horse then the director of operations William Geoffrey Cahill threw off, the most senior police officer of Queensland, the sustainable limped suffered as a result of fall injuries later. Even when her son she wanted to hold back, she did not flinch.

During World War II, she joined the Women's Peace Army, who fought with other political forces, including the Suffragette Adela Pankhurst, against the introduction of conscription in Australia, which was rejected in a referendum. In 1916 she was delegate of the Australian Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne.

In Australia it was ( German: " the grand old lady of the labor movement of Queensland " ) and "Mother Miller " and "the grand old woman of laboratory Queensland " called.

Memoirs

By Emma Miller exist a marble bust in the building of the Queensland Council of Unions and a bronze statue at King George Square. Emma Miller Place in Brisbane Furthermore, is named after her. An Emma -Miller Prize is awarded by the Queensland Council of Unions annually to women who have rendered outstanding services for the union.