Ada Nield Chew
Ada Nield Chew was a notable English writer and social activist born in 1870 in North Staffordshire. Growing up in a large family, she contributed significantly to household responsibilities, which influenced her writing that often depicted the struggles of working-class women. Chew's career began in the 1880s, working in a shop and a factory, where her outspoken letters critiquing the treatment of women led to her dismissal and paved the way for her writing career. She became involved in women's suffrage campaigns and worked as a trade union organizer, using her platform to advocate for better working conditions for female factory workers.
Her literary contributions, primarily between 1911 and 1914, reflect her commitment to political activism, focusing on the harsh realities faced by women in the workforce. Chew's works, such as "All in the Day's Work," highlight the urgent need for women's suffrage and unionization. Despite her brief writing career, she is remembered for her significant impact on the suffrage movement and her efforts to elevate the plight of women in society. Chew’s legacy continues to inspire discussions about women's rights and labor conditions in the early 20th century.
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Ada Nield Chew
Writer
- Born: January 28, 1870
- Birthplace: North Staffordshire, England
- Died: December 27, 1945
Biography
Ada Nield Chew was born, the second of thirteen children, on a farm in North Staffordshire, England to William Nield and Jane Hammond Nield in 1870. Chew attended public schools until she was eleven years old. From the beginning of her life, Chew shared the domestic burdens of her mother—cleaning, cooking, and caring for her younger siblings—a background that served her well by supplying material for her stories that portray the drudgery of household labor. Hardly surprising, Chew herself chose to have only one child.
Before becoming a professional writer, Chew worked during the 1880’s at a shop at Nantwich and at a factory that manufactured military uniforms. A series of twelve letters she wrote to the local Crewe Chronicle condemning the management for its ill treatment of women gained her nationally notoriety, the loss of her job, and set her on the path toward becoming a professional writer. She met her husband, George Chew, in 1897.
Chew next served on suffrage campaigns, traveled for the Socialist Party, and worked for ten years as a women’s trade union organizer while publishing articles and stories in social suffrage journals such as Common Cause and the Freewoman. Invariably, her stories deal with the life of working-class female factory workers.
Chew’s stories represent a form of political activism. Utilizing first-person, middle-class narrators, the author appealed to her middle-class female readers. In her 1912 “All in the Day’s Work: Mrs. Turpin” and “All in the Day’s Work: Mrs. Bolt,” Chew graphically describes the horrible working conditions experienced by working-class British women, taking the reader hour by hour through two women’s daily lives. Women’s suffrage and unionization are the solution, Chew declares, after painting a dreadful life for factory workers. Her 1913 “The Mother’s Story” ends with a the demand that women of all classes stand in solidarity in a world that views their lives as inferior.
Sadly, Chew’s fiction-writing career lasted only from 1911 to 1914. Categorized as a suffrage writer, her works were deeply inspired by the Edwardian era’s political controversies. Though initially cast into the shadows, at the time her works were published they shared the shelf with such modernist writers as James Joyce and Ezra Pound. Chew remains highly respected for her role in improving British women’s working conditions and helping them attain the right to vote.