Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 March 18

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Margaret Bondfield in 1919

Margaret Bondfield (1873–1953) was a British Labour politician, trades unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor, when she was appointed Minister of Labour in the Labour government of 1929–31. Bondfield was born in humble circumstances and received limited formal education. Beginning as a shopworker in Brighton and London, she was an active trades unionist and held union office from 1898. Bondfield helped to found the Women's Labour League in 1906, and was chair of the Adult Suffrage Society. She was a socialist rather than a suffragette, which divided her from some factions in the women's movement. She was first elected to parliament in 1923, and was a junior minister in the Labour government of 1924. Her term in the cabinet was overshadowed by the economic crises that beset the 1929–31 Labour ministry, and her actions in office antagonised many in the Labour Party. She left parliament in 1931, but continued in quiet public service until shortly before her death. (Full article...)

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Today's featured picture

The Railway

The Railway is an oil painting on canvas completed by Édouard Manet in 1873. It depicts a young woman, modeled by Victorine Meurent, in front of an iron fence near the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. Beside this pensive woman is a young girl, standing at the fence and watching through the railings as a train – identified only by its steam – passes beneath them.

The Railway was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1874, where it was subject to ridicule for its "baffling" subject and "incoherent" composition. The painting was first purchased by the baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, and later by American entrepreneur Henry Osborne Havemeyer. It was donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1956.

Painting: Édouard Manet

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