Margaret Haley
| Margaret A. Haley | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
November 15, 1861 Joliet, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | January 6, 1939 (aged 77) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Business Representative of Chicago Teachers' Federation; union organizer |
| Parent(s) | Michael and Elizabeth (née Tiernan) Haley |
Margaret A. Haley (November 15, 1861 – January 6, 1939) was a teacher, unionist, and Georgist land value tax activist, who was dubbed the "lady labor slugger". Haley was the first business representative of the Chicago Teachers' Federation and a pioneer leader in organizing schoolteachers. During her long career with the CTF, Haley fought to correct tax inequalities, increase the salaries of teachers, and expose unfair land leasing by the Chicago Board of Education.
Haley was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1861 to Irish immigrant parents; her mother came from Dublin, Ireland and her father was born in Montreal, Canada to Irish immigrants from County Clare, Ireland. For the first six years of her life, she lived on a farm. Her parents supported agrarian activism, including the grange. Economic upheaval in the 1880s and the depression of the 1890s contributed to her later activism. At the Illinois Normal School in Bloomington, Illinois. Haley imbibed the lessons of single-tax advocate Henry George. At the Cook County Normal School and the Buffalo School of Pedagogy, she received instruction from progressive educators Francis Wayland Parker and William James. Family financial troubles prompted Haley to begin teaching at age 16 at a country school in Grundy County, Illinois. She moved to Chicago in 1882 to teach in the Cook County school system. In 1884, she took a position as a sixth grade teacher at the Hendricks School in the Stockyards district on Chicago's South Side. She remained there until ending her career as a teacher in 1900.
Haley joined the Chicago Teacher's Federation in 1898, and was one of the organization's first district vice-presidents. The fight against the Harper Commission in 1898 constituted Haley’s first major fight as a member of the Chicago Teachers' Federation. William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, headed a commission that proposed a complete restructuring of the Chicago school system.
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