MikeDunnAuthor on Nostr: Today in Labor History July 4, 1832: John Neal delivered one of the first known ...

Today in Labor History July 4, 1832: John Neal delivered one of the first known public lectures in the US advocating for the rights of women, including suffrage and equal pay. Neal was a writer, abolitionist, advocate for racial and gender equality, and creator of the American gymnastics movement. He fought against the poll tax, arguing that both "the poor and the rich are taxed ... under the militia law" which was designed "to defend property of the rich man. The rich, of course, do not appear in the field. The poor do. The latter cannot afford to keep away; the former can." He proposed replacing the poll tax with a property tax. He also wrote that the Indian is the only true native American. (In those days, “Native American meant a white person born in America, as opposed to immigrants). He also wrote that American Indians "have never been the aggressors" in conflicts with European-Americans and that "no people, ancient or modern ... have been so deplorably oppressed, belied, and wronged, in every possible way." And he proposed legalizing interracial marriage, but for proto-eugenicist reasons: so that future generations of "the negroes of America would no longer be a separate, inferior class, without political power, without privilege, and without a share in the great commonwealth." As a writer, he is the first to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch in a work of fiction. Neal was also the first U.S. daily news columnist, its first art critic, author of the first history of American literature, and a pioneer in children’s stories.

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