Margaret Foley was born on March 19, 1875, in Dorchester, Mass. A member of the Hat Trimmers' Union, MF was on the board of the Boston Women's Trade Union League (BWTUL). She was employed by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) from 1906 to 1915 as a speaker and manager of organization work. After making open air suffrage speaking tours across Massachusetts, in 1911 MF attended the International Woman Suffrage Alliance convention in Stockholm and spent a month in London studying English suffrage tactics. Between 1912 and 1918 MF travelled to other states to help organizations campaign in critical referenda and elections.
In addition to her suffrage work, MF was a Trustee for Children in the Children's Institutions Department, 1913-1920, and deputy commissioner of the Child Welfare Division in the Institutions Department, 1920-1926, both for the City of Boston. MF never married and probably lived with her long time friend Helen Elizabeth Goodnow for many years. For further biographical information see the biography accompanying the Margaret Foley Collection (MC 404) in the Schlesinger Library. For additional papers, see MC 404, A/F663, and the Foley series of the Women's Rights Collection.
Helen Elizabeth Goodnow was born in 1894, probably into a well to do family, and lived in the Boston area. In the 1910s she campaigned for suffrage in Boston, serving as chairman of Ward 25 in Brighton, perhaps under the auspices of the MWSA. HEG probably accompanied MF on her "Southern Trip" in 1916. She was living with MF at the time of the latter's death.
From the guide to the Papers, 1882-1965, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
