Maud O'Farrell Swartz
US Labour leader
Maud O'Farrell Swartz (1879–1937) was an Irish-American labor organizer who worked to improve the lives of women and children. She served as president of the Women's Trade Union League from 1922 to 1926. In 1931 she was appointed secretary of the New York State Department of Labor under Industrial Commissioner Frances Perkins. She was the first woman and the first trade unionist to hold that position.
Early life and education
Maud O'Farrell was born in County Kildare, Ireland, on May 3, 1879. She was one of fourteen children of William J. Farrell, a flour miller, and Sara Matilda Grace. Her mother was related to William Russell Grace, who became New York City's first Irish Catholic mayor in 1880, and to the owners of the Grace shipping line. Maud O'Farrell was educated at home, and then at convent schools in Germany and France. Afterwards she worked for a time as a governess in Italy. While living in Europe she became fluent in Italian, German, and French.
“Maud O'Farrell Swartz” enters the record as uS Labour leader. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maud, O'Farrell and Swartz can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maud O'Farrell Swartz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.