 Born in Illinois of immigrant parents, she attended poor rural schools.  Her father was a labor activist and Haley developed an interest in politics.  At age 16, she was forced to get a job because of her parents’ financial troubles. What did she decide to do?

 At age 16, she became a teacher in her community in Illinois.  Finding she enjoyed it, she continued her teaching education.  At age 19, she became a 6 th grade teacher in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago and continued to teach in horrible conditions for the next 16 years.  Her classrooms were crowded, under-serviced, and most students quit school after their 6 th grade year.

 Because of these conditions and low pay, she began to speak out about teachers’ rights and the important role of a teacher.  Haley became one of the first members of the Chicago Teacher’s Federation in  It had been recently organized by a group of female school teachers defending their rights.  With her political knowledge, she quickly became the leader of CTF.

 As one of Haley’s first cases as leader, the Chicago Board of Education had promised Chicago teachers a pay raise.  The board did not follow through with this raise claiming they had a lack of funds.  Haley decided to look further into this issue, and found that many large businesses in Chicago were not paying their taxes with the government overlooking them.

 After much research and hard work, she took 5 major corporations to court.  Haley won her case and brought back $600,000 to the city of Chicago.  Haley’s court case eventually brought more money to the city’s schools and pay raises for teachers, bringing about more public school teachers in the area!

 Following the tax fights, Haley encouraged the Chicago Teacher’s Federation (97% women, whom were unable to vote at this time) to join the Chicago Federation of Labor (comprised entirely of 200,000 voting men)  Many women were skeptical, but Haley pushed to join to finally give teachers a voice.  In 1902, the CTF became the first body of teachers to affiliate with labor and finally, organized labor strongly supported public education.

 Haley continued to make positive changes to education in Chicago and lead the CTF for 35 more years.  Margaret Haley became the quintessential women’s and teacher’s rights leader of the 19 th century, and made many understand the importance of education in Chicago’s society.

 Before her death in 1939 at the age of 77, Haley wrote an autobiography entitled “Battleground: The Autobiography of Margaret Haley,” in hopes that her life would inspire another to stand up for the rights of educators.