page_title: Luisa Capetillo
section_title: Labor leader and women's rights activist
hierarchical_section_title: Luisa Capetillo / Labor leader and women's rights activist
caption_attribution_description: English: Luisa Capetillo wearing Men's Clothing
context_page_description: Luisa Capetillo was one of Puerto Rico's most famous labor leaders. She was a social labor organizer and a writer who fought for equal rights for women's rights, free love and human emancipation.
context_section_description: During a farm workers' strike in 1905, Capetillo wrote propaganda and organized the workers in the strike. In 1910 she became a reporter for the "FLT" (American Federation of Labor) and traveled throughout Puerto Rico educating and organizing women. Her hometown, Arecibo, became the most unionized area of the country. Additionally, she also started her own newspaper called La mujer, which confronted women's issues.
  Capetillo started a program of reading to the women who worked 12 hour shifts on the shop floor making cigars. It is assumed that is where she developed many of her feminist principals In 1908, during the "FLT" convention, Capetillo asked the union to approve a policy for women's suffrage. She insisted that all women should have the same right to vote as men. Capetillo is considered to be one of Puerto Rico's first suffragists.
  In 1912, Capetillo traveled to New York City, where she organized Cuban and Puerto Rican tobacco workers. Later on, she went to Tampa, Florida, where she also organized the workers. In Florida, she published the second edition of "Mi Opinión". She also traveled to Cuba and the Dominican Republic, where she joined the striking workers in their cause.
  In 1919, she challenged the mainstream society by becoming the first woman in Puerto Rico to wear pants in public. Capetillo was sent to jail for what was then considered to be a "crime", but the judge later dropped the charges against her. She would repeat this act of rebellion again stepping off the boat into Cuba where the judge was not so lenient leading to her serving time. In that same year, along with other labor activists, she helped pass a minimum-wage law in the Puerto Rican Legislature.
caption: Capetillo wearing men's clothes
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