Woman's Guide to Political Action

CIO Political Action Committee

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Woman's Guide to Political Action

"IN A DEMOCRACY ONE MAN IS JUST AS GOOD AS ANOTHER—IF NOT A LITTLE BETTER. THIS SEEMS TO BE TRUE OF WOMEN VOTERS THIS YEAR": A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO POLITICAL ACTION, 1944

CIO Political Action Committee. A Woman's Guide to Political Action. (New York: National Political Action Committee, C.I.O., 1944). Slim octavo, original green-and-white pictorial wrappers, staple-bound as issued; pp. 47.

First edition of one of the first publications by one of America's first PACs, declaring "every woman voter should know the score" and dramatizing women's vital role in protecting jobs, health care and WWII's fight against fascism, with nearly 20 color- and black-and-white illustrations, a fine copy.

After passage of the 1943 Smith-Connally Act, the CIO created the first PAC (Political Action Committee). A Woman's Guide to Political Action, one of its first publications, highlighted the role of women in fostering jobs, health care and the fight against fascism. With lively illustrations that championed women's rights, it proclaimed: "every woman voter should know the score." The Guide rejected "the notion that after the war, women should be relegated to purely domestic pursuits. Both as homemakers and as wage earners, the pamphlet held, women had particular reasons for supporting the CIO-FDR effort. Only a government-promoted full-employment economy could provide the good jobs that working women needed. Only New Deal-like programs for child and health care could ease women's family burdens… The pamphlet's illustrations drove home the theme. Its one drawing of the domestic scene showed an enslaved housewife literally chained via a nose ring to a kitchen sink piled high with dirty dishes. In contrast, dignified drawings depicted women wielding rivet guns and enjoying workplace comradeship. [And] with women expected to comprise over 50% of the 1944 electorate, the artists rendered sober sketches of women citizens toting up politicians' voting records" (Zieger, CIO, 185). Introduction by CIO President Philip Murray. Illustrated front and rear wrappers; with 17 color- and black-and-white illustrations.

A fine copy in colorful original wrappers.

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