Under a headline that rightly says “we need bread but also roses”, your editorial (23 February) draws attention to the 1911 poem Bread and Roses, implying that this was the source of this powerful, inspiring phrase. The actual origin was a pillow in a house where the US suffragette Helen Todd was staying when she was speaking at a campaign rally in 1910. In September 1911, she wrote in The American Magazine: “I saw that Mother Jones’ pillow was sent to her with the inscription, ‘Bread for all, and Roses too’.” She went on: “woman is the mothering element in the world and her vote will go toward helping forward the time when life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice.”
Anthony Lawton
Church Langton, Leicestershire
