מוד נתן

Maud Nathan (1862-1946), social worker, labor activist and women’s suffragist, born in New York, United States, into a Portuguese Jewish family. The family relocated to Green Bay, Wisconsin, living there for four years. After graduating from the local high school, she returned to New York in 1878. In New York Nathan became actively involved in charitable endeavors, among them she served as director at both Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Free School. Nathan was a co-founder of the New York Consumer's League, a group dedicated to advocating for an eight-hour workday for women and children and supporting the Working Women's Society in highlighting fair labor practices in shops. In 1897, Nathan assumed the role of president of the New York Consumer's League. When the National Consumer's League was established in 1898, Nathan became a member of its executive committee. In 1901, after Nathan delivered a speech in the state, the Consumer League of Rhode Island was formed.

Nathan's involvement in lobbying for consumer issues in Albany, NY, revealed the disregard of legislators for the opinions of women without voting rights. Consequently, Nathan became increasingly engaged in suffrage activities. In 1908, she authored a pamphlet titled The Wage Earner and the Ballot, which highlighted the benefits of suffrage states, such as higher age of consent, lower illiteracy rates, better pay for women in civil service jobs, and more robust child labor laws.

Nathan’s support for the right to vote for women caused tension in her family when her brother and sister Annie Nathan Meyer opposed it. However, her husband, Frederick Nathan (d. 1919), supported her and even led, among other things, the Men's League for Equal Suffrage.

Maud Nathan was a descendant of Gershom Mendes Seixas, minister of New York's Congregation Sherith Israel during the American Revolutionary War, the sister of Annie Nathan Meyer (1867–1951), founder of Barnard College, and the aunt of Robert Gruntal Nathan (1894-1985), a novelist and poet.