Hazy History
Documenting history is a breeze in today’s technological age with smartphones and social media, but occasionally, details of the past have been lost in time, leaving the origins of several time-honored traditions unclear. International Women’s Day has snags in its story as well, which have left people questioning how it truly began.
We often hear IWD stems from the 50th anniversary of garment workers protesting for better working conditions and livable wages in New York City in 1857. However, in 1985, historian Temma Kaplan uncovered a French article that claims the protest myth was created in the 1950s to distract from IWD’s socialist connections and give it a more international feel.