Mary Nelson Winslow (1887–1952) was a

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, social worker who worked in the US Department of Labor's Women's Bureau from 1920 into the late 1930s, conducting many research projects on the status of working women. She was an officer of the

National Women's Trade Union League The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a United States, U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL pla ...

. When the

Inter-American Commission of Women The Inter-American Commission of Women (, , ), abbreviated CIM, is an organization that falls within the Organization of American States. It was established in 1928 by the Sixth Pan-American Conference and is composed of one female representative ...

was made a permanent subsidiary commission of the Pan-American Union (which later became the

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

) Winslow was made the official US delegate to the commission and served from 1938 to 1944.

Biography

Mary Nelson Winslow was born on September 22, 1887, to Francis Winslow and Harriet Livingston Patterson. On her mother's side, she descended of Carlile Pollock Patterson and the Livingston family, which married into the

Jay Jays are a paraphyletic grouping of passerine birds within the family Corvidae. Although the term "jay" carries no taxonomic weight, most or all of the birds referred to as jays share a few similarities: they are small to medium-sized, usually ...

family and were some of the founding families of the United States. Winslow attended the

New York School of Social Work The Columbia School of Social Work is the graduate school of social work of Columbia University in New York City. It is one of the oldest social work programs in the US, with roots extending back to 1898. It began awarding a Master of Science d ...

and by 1920 she was working in the government service as an industrial agent for the US Department of Labor in the Women's Bureau. She had worked her way up to director and editor of exhibits by 1923 and by 1924 was conducting studies on the nature of women in the labor force, including the number of married women employed outside the home, the effect of women working on the family, and the non-acceptance of working wives by employers. Between 1929 and 1941, she also served as legislative representative in Washington, D.C., for the National Women's Trade Union League and then served on its executive board. continued in During that same time, Winslow was nominated by President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

as the United States' representative to the

(CIM). In a large part, her nomination was used by FDR to oust

Doris Stevens Doris Stevens (born Dora Caroline Stevens; October 26, 1888 – March 22, 1963) was an American suffragist, woman's legal rights advocate and author. She was the first female member of the American Institute of International Law and first chai ...

from the CIM and transform the organization from a quasi-autonomous advisory group into a subsidiary commission of the

Pan American Union The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

. Winslow was appointed the US's official representative at the 1938 Conference of the Pan-American States, held in Lima, Peru and served on the CIM until 1944. She then became an adviser on women's affairs to

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich "Rocky" Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was the 41st vice president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He was also the 49th governor of New York, serving from 1959 to 197 ...

. She died on May 2, 1952, in Washington, D.C., and her papers were donated by her older sister Harriet Winslow to

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

Selected works

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References

External links

Winslow, Mary N. (Mary Nelson). Papers, 1923-1951

WorldCat Selected works
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winslow, Mary Nelson 1887 births 1952 deaths American women's rights activists American social workers 20th-century American women writers United States Department of Labor officials 20th-century people from Washington, D.C.