Margaret Dreier Robins

Margaret Dreier Robins (6 September 1868 – 21 February 1945) was an American labor leader and philanthropist.

Early life She was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 6, 1868. Her mother's maiden name was Dreier and her parents were cousins from Bremen, Germany. Their ancestors were civic leaders and merchants. Theodor came to the United States in 1849 and became partner of the English iron firm of Naylor, Benson and Company's New York branch. He married Dorothea in 1864 during a visit to Bremen and brought her back with him to the United States and they lived in a brownstone house in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Margaret Dreier Robins, LaFollette's Magazine, January 1, 1911. Margaret Dreier had a brother and three sisters.

Social reform career

At age nineteen, she began doing charity work at Brooklyn Hospital and soon became involved in other progressive causes. She met the reformer Josephine Shaw Lowell in 1902, and through Lowell joined in the Woman’s Municipal League, an organization that helped women avoid prostitution. Another collaborator was Frances Kellor, with whom she founded the New York Association for Household Research which provided lodging and placement for women domestic workers.

In 1919, Robins played an important role in the creation of the first International Congress of Working Women. Robins agreed to send both Rose Schneiderman and Mary Anderson to the Paris Peace Conference, where with other female labor leaders they organized an international labor women’s conference to prepare for the upcoming International Labour Organization convention in October in Washington, D.C.

In 1924, Robins retired from her activist work and moved full-time with her husband to Florida. She continued her philanthropic work there, helping found the YWCA and the first library and supporting local arts productions. She died in 1945, aged 76.