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OUR LIFE Monthly, published by Ukrainian National Women’» League of America VOL. XXXIX JULY—AUGUST 1982 EDITED BY A. H. Sawyckyj LOOKING BACK AT THE 1932 CONGRESS OF By Lydia Hladky UKRAINIAN WOMEN The First Congress of Ukrainian Women in the U. S., whose 50th anniversary we are celebrating this year, was an important historic event for UNWLA and for the Ukrainian women’s movement in the U. S. On May 28- 31, 1932 at the Ukrainian National Home in New York City, 58 delegates from 30 Branches of UNWLA met to discuss issues important to Ukrainian women. The program included a talk by Olena Lototsky, then the president of UNWLA (and the heart and soul of the Congress) on “Ukrainian Women’s Organization in the U. S. and Their Participation in International Organizations”; Marusia Bek, a young attorney from Detroit, on “Ukrainian Women Today and Yesterday”; Vice President of UNWLA Pavlyna Avramenko on “U- krainian Women and Folk Art”; and Stefania Abraha- mowska on “The Ukrainian Working Woman in America.” In addition to delegates from Ukrainian women’s organizations in Canada, there were other participants and guests at the Congress: representatives of the International League for Peace and Freedom, the Na tional Council of Women, and the well-known writer Fannie Hurst. The local YWCA and the Women’s Inter national Institute hosted a luncheon, at which they urged Ukrainian women to jointly work toward the betterment of the world as well as individual nations. Especially interesting were the remarks of Mrs. Bremer, the representative of the International Council of the YWCA, who spoke about the need to bring the study of native languages of immigrant groups into the curricula of the public schools. She also spoke about the rights, privileges and duties of Ukrainian-American women as U. S. citizens, who could now work not only for the better future of the U. S. but for their native country as well. The Congress was a watershed for the young UNWLA, which had been founded in 1925, only seven years earlier, when many different women’s organiza tions and clubs banded together to form a single central organization. While formerly UNWLA had consisted of small heterogenous clubs with limited programs, it now became a united organization with Branches sharing the positive image of a large organization with a membership numbering several thousand strong. It quickly gained stature in the Ukrainian community. From the time of the Congress, UNWLA also began to grow in numbers. At this time, thirty Branches were founded, which is evidence of how greatly Ukrainian women at this time participated in Ukrainian community life. But the 1932 Congress in New York did not occur in a vacuum. It was the inheritor of a long tradition of U- krainian women’s activism. Fifty years earlier, in 1884, the first Ukrainian Women’s Convention was held in Stanislaviv, Western Ukraine, laying the foundation for Ukrainian women’s activism in Western Ukraine. Around Natalia Kobrynska, the Convention’s organizer, there gathered a group of women activists who believed in women’s right to education, economic emancipation and political rights. Soyuz Ukrainok in Ukraine was very active in organizing Ukrainian women of all ages and classes. In 1934, the political activist Milena Rudnytska called together another Ukrainian Women’s Congress in Stanislaviv, in honor of the one in 1884, fifty years earlier. There were close ties between Soyuz Ukrainok in Ukraine and Ukrainian women’s organizations in the West. Ukrainian women abroad often financed delega tions from Ukraine to international congresses and con ferences, whenever Ukrainian representatives were al lowed by their government to attend these. If a delega tion from Ukraine was forbidden to attend a particular conference, Ukrainian women living abroad in their new countries of settlement, went in their place. For UNWLA and for Ukrainian women in the U. S., the 1932 Congress was a most important event. From the speeches and reports from the Congress, there emerges enthusiasm, optimism, faith in the future, and de termination to work for improvement. This optimism is all the more remarkable when we recall that this was in the midst of the Great Depression, and Ukrainians in the U. S. were still psychologically recovering from the failure of the struggle for Ukrainian independence. Furthermore, the hope of returning to their native land was quickly diminishing. And yet, at the Congress, a mood of optimism reigned, which can serve as a good example to those of us today who are involved in the U- krainian women’s movement. Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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