Brood & Rozen, more than a title
By Nina Moens, Public Relations Officer at Amsab-ISG
Anyone who knows Amsab-ISG undoubtedly knows the magazine. Bread & Roses. On the website it is described as follows:Bread & Roses is the most versatile journal on social history in Flanders. Renowned professors as well as young, emerging researchers, authors outside academia, and heritage workers bring the rich history of social movements to life there.' But where does the title come from? Bread & Roses come from?
'Bread for all, and roses too' American suffragettes are said to have used those words for the first time in 1911 during the 'automobile campaign' for women's suffrage. One of them, Helen M. Todd, mentioned 'Bread and Flowersin her speech and wrote about it in The American Magazine in September of that same year. In it, she recounts a conversation with the women she stayed with during the campaign. She quotes Maggie, one of them, about what stuck with her from the speech:If you want to know of what I liked the best in the whole meetin', she said, 'it was that about the women's votin' so's everybody would have bread and flowers too.' The woman even asked for a pillow for her 92-year-old mother to be decorated with the words 'Bread and Flowers'. Eventually it became 'Bread for all, and roses too'.1
Helen M. Todd. (Helen M. Todd - Wikipedia)
Not much later, James Oppenheim, an American poet, picked up the statement and incorporated it into his poem. Bread and RosesIn addition to being a poet, Oppenheim was also a writer and editor. His work reflects his passion for social justice.2 The poem also appeared in The American Magazine, in December 1911, two months after Helen M. Todd's story. It is about female workers who no longer want to live under the yoke of men.3 A few years later, in 1916, Caroline Kohlsaat set the text to music.
James Oppenheim, 1928. (James Oppenheim - Wikipedia)
The poem by James Oppenheim in The American Magazine, December 1911.
The poem was later also translated into Dutch. The translator is unknown.
Women walk through the streets, it seems as if the sun has risen.
in millions of dull kitchens, in a thousand wacky studios
All those women have finally chosen freedom now.
and they sing: "Give us bread, but from now on also give us some
roses".
Women walk through the streets, having stepped out of line.
They also expect their share of the opportunities in life.
A harness is good for oxen, but evil for humans.
Yes, we want bread, of course, but we would also like roses.
Women march through the streets; it is also about men's rights,
who, just like all those women, remains enslaved by the question of bread,
Life is not meant to toil in such a rut, that hopelessness,
Even a heart can sometimes starve, give us bread but also give
roses.
Women walk through the streets and their song is centuries old,
but it was constantly stifled and snapped away behind closed doors.
Now, awakened from her hypnosis, she chooses for herself, is not chosen.
And the woman earns her living, and look, she picks her own roses too!4
In January 1912, a month after Oppenheim's poem had appeared, a strike broke out in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in the United States. A new law stipulated that the working hours for women and children would be reduced from 56 to 54 hours per week. This change in the law caused an uproar. Firstly, because 54 hours a week was still a great deal. All workers—women, children, and men—worked themselves to death during that period. Secondly, because not only did working hours decrease, but wages also went down by 0,32 cents per day. Today that does not seem like much, but back then, for many families, it meant the difference between putting food on the table and starving.5
The women of the Everett Mill factory were the first to decide that enough was enough. They downed tools and took to the streets. Along the way, they encouraged hundreds, and eventually even thousands, of workers to join them. In total, about 25.000 people participated in the strike.6 Things got rough at times, and eventually the strike escalated into a true power struggle between factory bosses, politicians, unions, and even anarchists.7 But it is the unorganized women who took to the streets en masse and took the lead who still capture the imagination today. Overnight, bound by solidarity, they organized all kinds of actions across gender and language boundaries – among the workers in Lawrence, there were no fewer than 51 nationalities.8 And the story goes that 'We want bread and roses, too' echoed through the streets... Later, the strike was therefore given the name Bread and Roses Strike.
Female strikers, 1912. ( )The Strike | DPLA)
The exact origin of 'Bread and Roses', however, remains shrouded in mystery. The slogan must presumably have been circulating earlier, including in Europe. For instance, reference has sometimes been made to a verse from the poem Deutschland.9 Ein Wintermärchen from 1844 by Heinrich Heine:
I'm waiting for you to enjoy your meal
For all children of men,
Auch Rosen und Myrten, Beauty und Lust,
And Zuckererbsen not less.
Within the women's and workers' movement, ' grewBread and Roses' evolved into a symbol of their struggle. But why bread and roses? Bread symbolized the right to basic necessities, against hunger. That choice was easily made, since people at the time ate mainly bread. But people do not live on bread alone. They also demanded roses: for a better quality of life, education, leisure, and culture, and for a voice in society.
To this day, we encounter the slogan. Books and films bear the title. Bread and RosesAnd the song, based on the poem by James Oppenheim, recently featured in the film. Pride. ‘Bread and Roses' therefore stands today for a broad call for justice, because in every form of protest and resistance, basic rights and quality of life go hand in hand.
1. Helen M. TODD, Getting out the vote. An account of a week's automobile campaign by women suffragists. In: The American Magazine, (1911)5, pp. 611-619
2. His ideology will cost him his appointment as a teacher at a girls' school. For the school, his beliefs were too 'radical'. See: archives.nypl.org -- James Oppenheim papers. Last accessed on 16/12/2025.
3. James OPPENHEIM, Bread and roses. In: The American Magazine, 1911, p. 214.
4. Guy VANSCHOENBEEK, Brood & Rozen. After the story and the slogan, the song. In: Brood & Rozen, (1996)3, pp. 58-59.
5. Guy VANSCHOENBEEK, We want bread and roses too: the strike in Lawrence (USA), 1912. In: Brood & Rozen, (1996)2, pp. 78-80.
6. Guy VANSCHOENBEEK, We want bread and roses too […], p. 78.
7. Several strikers also lost their lives in the violence, such as Anna LoPizzo, an Italian, who was killed by police. See: Bruce Watson, Bread & Roses. Mills, migrants, and the struggle for the American dream, London: Penguin Books, 2005, pp. 106-107.
8. Workers came from far and wide to work in the American factories. In Lawrence alone, there were no fewer than 51 nationalities: including from Italy, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium (primarily Wallonia), France, but also Syria and Canada. See: Bruce WATSON, Bread & Roses […], p. 8.
9 Ludo Abicht mentions that similarity in his essay *Bread, Roses and Utopia*. Is it a coincidence? Or did German immigrants indeed have an influence on the American labor movement? See: Ludo ABICHT, *Bread, Roses and Utopia*, Ghent: Kritiek, 1987, p. 173.
