Emalia Holliday

    

Emalia Holliday
Emalia Holliday in 1930
People’s Commissar for Social Welfare
In office 1 March 1917 – 14 May 1924
Preceded by	Position created
Succeeded by	Andrew Lankford
Full member of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th Central Committees
In office 9 August 1917 – 28 June 1925
Chairwoman of the Federation of Continental Women
In office 1 May 1919 – 5 August 1926
Preceded by	Position Created
Succeeded by	Jennifer Semashko
Personal details
Born	(1881-09-01)1 September 1881 Chicago, Illinois, United Commonwealth
Died	(1945-04-30)30 April 1945 Eucallipolis, Ontario, United Commonwealth
Resting place	National People’s Cemetery, Chicago
Nationality	Continental
Political party	Continentalist Party
Religion	Atheist

Emalia Holliday (1 September 1881 – 30 April 1945) was a Continentalist revolutionary, politician, diplomat, and Marxist theoretician. She was a highly prominent figure in the Continental Revolutionary War and the development of the United Commonwealth. In 1917 she became the first woman in history to become an official member of a governing cabinet, with her appointment to the inaugural government of Aeneas Warren. She served on the Council of People’s Commissars as the People’s Commissar for Social Welfare from 1917 to 1924, and was a full member of the 8th–13th Central Committees.

The daughter of a United Commonwealth Army officer, Holliday embraced the socialist movement in the late 1890s and was an early member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, being one of 37 delegates present at the party’s 1st Congress in 1901. For suspected involvement in terrorist activities she entered exile in 1915, but she returned to the Untied Commonwealth at the dawn of the revolution, as part of the fabled midnight crossing during the Battle of Detroit. As a member of the 8th Central Committee she voted in favor of the armed uprising to seize control over the government of Illinois. Holliday was appointed by Warren to the office of People’s Commissar for Social Welfare, where she would serve until 1924. After the rise of Seamus Callahan, Holliday resigned from upper leadership, but remained active in politics and as an activist. She was an outspoken critic of Callahan’s undemocratic internal practices and the growing bureaucracy in the Continentalist Party, but despite this she narrowly retained her membership in the party. After 1926 she became an ambassador, serving in France and Mexico, before retiring in 1942. She died in 1967 and was buried in the National People’s Cemetery outside Chicago.

Holliday is also regarded as an important figure in the Continental feminist movement, along with stateswomen such as Nikita Neosha, Madeleine Waldmann, and Mother Jones. In 1919 she founded the Federation of Continental Women, an organization tasked with improving the conditions of women in the United Commonwealth, which exists to this day as one of the country’s largest mass organizations. She was also a member of the Landonist Women’s International, an autonomous branch of the Landonist International which sought to promote women’s rights abroad. Holliday was a major proponent for the legalization of abortion, with the United Commonwealth becoming the first country in the world to do in 1919 via Continental Decree, and she was a prominent advocate for free love.

Early life

Emalia Holliday was born on 1 September 1881 in Chicago, Illinois. She was daughter of famed lawman and gunfighter Doc Holliday, who later became an officer in the United Commonwealth Army, and was of mixed Scottish, English, and Hungarian descent. Although her family supported the Federalist government, they entertained liberal political views, and Emalia grew up exposed to numerous worldviews. After her father’s divorce in 1888, he quickly remarried Maria Haley, who proved to be a domineering and angry stepmother to the young Emalia, especially after her father’s death in 1891. According to Holliday’s account, her stepmother demanded militant perfection at all times. Holliday was pushed by her family to grow up a good student, showing a key interest in history and language, and by the end of high school she was also fluent in French and German. Although Holliday wished to attend university, her stepmother demanded that she instead find a husband, arguing that university was no place for a young woman, as schooling encouraged dangerous radicalism and unladylike behavior. As a compromise, Emalia enrolled in a class to become a school teacher. All the while, her stepmother scoffed at the prospect of Holliday entering the workforce, and pushed her to consider a number of marriage proposals.

As a teenager, Holliday began reading the works of Isaiah Landon and other revolutionaries, and also became an avid writer of nonfiction, especially alternate history. In an effort to get out of her stepmother’s household, and to help advance socialism even if through minor action, Holliday volunteered to teach English classes to urban workers and immigrants at her neighborhood’s library. It was during these lessons at the library that Holliday was introduced to Ryan Kennelly, a socialist activist, and the two became lifelong friends. Holliday began covertly distributing and couriering pamphlets and messages on Kennelly’s behalf, becoming introduced to other socialists throughout Chicago as a result. In 1901 she formally joined the Revolutionary Socialist Party at the age of 20, and became one of 37 delegates who attended the party’s 1st Congress in St. Louis. It was at this meeting she became introduced to Aeneas Warren, the future leader of the Continentalist movement in the United Commonwealth. She returned to Chicago and began studying history and economics, all the while working as a teacher and writing and distributing Continentalist material. She would be an eyewitness to the bloody 1905 labor rights in Chicago, and helped to propagate info on the event. As her involvement in the Continentalist Party intensified, she was connected to a series of terrorist plots and other acts of violence around the Midwest, and fearing arrest from Federalist authorities, Holliday entered a self imposed exile from the law into Canada in 1915.

Revolutionary era

Holliday (front row) at the 4th Congress of the American United Labor Front in 1911.

During her brief stay in Canada she remained active in the party and continued writing. She would write and publish her first of several books, America and Socialism, advocating for numerous reforms. She became fiercely opposed to the wars of the United Commonwealth, which she considered “imperialistic”, and aided in hundreds of people avoiding the draft by smuggling them into Canada. She soon garnered a reputation as a well spoken orator for her speeches and debates denouncing wars of aggression around the globe.

In late 1916 Aeneas Warren arrived in Chicago at the head of a large continent of Continental revolutionaries, and took control over the budding rebellion taking shape in the city. Hearing of this, Holliday helped arrange for a midnight passage of similarly exiled revolutionaries and sympathetic soldiers from Canada back into the United Commonwealth. In what would be called the “first shot of the Revolution”, this caravan crossed the border near Detroit and attacked Federalist garrisons near the city. As the Siege of Detroit unfolded, Holliday traveled to Chicago and joined focus with Warren once more. When Warren proposed a series of radical reforms to the Chicago City Council and to his fellow Continentalists, Holliday was among the first to endorse his plan and campaigned in his favor. With the formation of the Chicago Constituent Assembly following mass protests in the city, Holliday was elected to the assembly’s Executive Committee, where she acted as a speaker, writer, and agitator in favor of full scale revolution. Warren would create a shadow cabinet in 1917, which would eventually evolve into the Council of People’s Commissars, and appointed Holliday as the People’s Commissar for Social Welfare. At the 8th Congress of the Continentalist Party, Holliday was elected to its Central Committee, where she led a faction voting in favor of an immediate armed uprising, which was carried out that autumn, resulting in the capture of Illinois. Holliday would make history through her appointment to the People’s Commissars, as that autumn she became the first woman to serve in a government cabinet.

In addition to serving in the Government of Aeneas Warren, Holliday also founded the Federation of Continental Women in 1919. The organization would be created as a special department associated with the Continentalist Party, which existed to promote opportunities and equality for women. Its primary goal was the upliftment of women in Continental society: promotion of education for women, the creation of women’s rights legislation, campaigns to increase women participation in the workforce, and introducing women to Landonist values. That same year the Federation achieved its first legislative victory when it successfully campaigned in favor of the legalization of abortion. The measure would be passed via Continental Decree, and the United Commonwealth became the first country in the world to legalize the practice. Numerous other pieces of legislation would be passed due to the activism of the Federation or Holliday personally, such as a ban on marital rape, the legalization of divorce, the creation of centers for child caring and resources for mothers, and ultimately the Equal Rights Act, which decreed that there would be “no political, civil, or legal disabilities or inequalities on account of sex.” Holliday also participated in the creation of the Landonist Women’s International, an autonomous division of the Landonist International with a specific focus on improving the conditions of women worldwide.

Later Career

In late 1921 Holliday began to increasingly align with the Labor Front, a faction within the Continentalist Party loosely led by William Z. Foster and Zhou Xinyue, which aligned with trade unions and syndicalists. Holliday supported a radical plan to introduce a separation of powers in the new United Commonwealth constitution, delegating certain functions to the Continentalist Party, the municipalities, and the trade unions, which ultimately failed. Nonetheless the Labor Front continued to gain traction in 1922, gathering those who disagreed with increased bureaucratization and decreased democratization. After the death of Warren, the debate regarding the nation’s direction turned into one of succession as well, with Seamus Callahan emerging as the lead figure opposed to the Labor Front. Ultimately Holliday would be pushed out of government and chose to resign her posts, instead requesting to become an ambassador in search of a change of scenery. Her requisition was granted in 1926, and she would serve as an ambassador in such countries as France and Mexico for the better part of two decades.

Honors

• Eugene V. Debs Award (1933)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1940)
• Warren Prize for Literature (1948)
• Mexico: Order of the Aztec Eagle
• North Vietnam: Order of Ho Chi Minh (1966)