The Women Chainmakers’ Centenary Festival 2010  

On Saturday 18th September, The Black Country Living Museum will be hosting the Women Chainmakers’ Centenary Festival. The event runs from 10am till 8pm.  The keynote speaker is Tony Benn “Tired of working day and night for starvation wages, the Women Chainmakers of Cradley Heath in the Black Country downed their hammers and stood up for their right to earn a living wage. This event, which took place in 1910, when the women, led by the founder of the National Federation of Women Workers-Mary Macarthur, and their ten week strike successfully established the right to a minimum wage. Supported internationally, the strike fund received so many contributions that a building was constructed with the surplus. The Workers’ Institute, as it was called, became a centre for women to meet and organise, a place to learn and to socialise.”  (Extracted from http://www.wolvestuc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32:wom) ...