TEACHER Kate Kennedys spent her formative years in Ireland. She was born there in 1827, the year before the English ban on education for the Irish was lifted. She and her elder brother participated in the nationalist movements of the times. Over a million Irish starved to death while nearly all produce in Ireland was taken up as rent, and Kate with many other despairing Irish families had to move from their land and emigrate, in 1849, she first stopped in New York, then moved to San Francisco in 1856. Among the host of people who down the ages have gone largely unheralded despite their significant contributions to the advancement of social justice is Kate Kennedy, a 19th century San Francisco school teacher. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, an Irish immigrant and teacher, Kate Kennedy, launched a lobbying campaign for equal pay for equal work. Her efforts were partially successful when the state legislature adopted an 1874 law that mandated, Females employed as teachers in the public schools of this state shall in all cases receive the same compensation as is allowed male teachers for like services. Her test case secured the legal precedent in the United States for equal pay for women doing the same work as men. In 1886 she was the first woman in California to run for state-wide public office--State Superintendent of Schools. And in 1890 her test case ended, once for all, the political spoils system in California: no longer could civil service workers--and that included teachers--be fired except for professional misconduct or incompetency. At the time--and for many decades following--teaching was one of few professions open to women in California. Half of all teachers in Los Angeles in the 1870s were women, but before the 1874 law, their pay was less than that of their male colleagues.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 23:35:42 +0000
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