Frustrated by poor conditions
in their workplaces and unsatisfactory response from their employers, New
York shirtwaist makers met with leaders of the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union’s Local 25 on November 22, 1909, at Cooper Union to
discuss next steps. After listening to male union and other labor leaders
speak, Clara Lemlich asked for permission to address the crowd. Lemlich,
an employee at the Leiserson’s factory who had already been on strike,
beaten on the picket line, admitted and recently released from the hospital
for the resulting injuries, stood up and delivered an impassioned speech
in Yiddish, saying “I am a working girl, one of those who are on strike
against intolerable conditions. I am tired of listening to speakers who
talk in general terms. What we are here for is to decide whether we shall
or shall not strike. I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared
-- now." The crowd, consisting of mostly Jewish immigrants, embraced
Lemlich’s call. Meeting chairman Benjamin Feigenbaum, “carried
off his feet from by the emotional outburst” exclaimed “Do you
mean faith? Will you take the old Jewish oath?” Hands flew up and
the women, in Yiddish, declared “If I turn traitor to the cause I
now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise.” Approximately
20,000 shirtwaist makers -- manufacturers of popular ladies' blouses --
walked out of work the next day. They filled the sidewalks surrounding
their workplaces and began what became a weeks-long picketing demonstration.
The scant preparation hindered the strikers at first, but sheer resolve
bolstered their cause. Although both male and female shirtwaist makers
participated in the walkout, the majority of the demonstrators were female.
Empowered by their action, the strikers began to redefine their identities.
Dissatisfied with their roles as mere cogs in an industrial machine, the
striking ladies attempted with the so-called “Uprising of the 20,000”
to characterize themselves first and foremost as human beings worth humane
treatment. The strikers demanded a 52-hour workweek, that their employers
provide supplies instead of charging for them, equally distributed work
seasons, paid legal holidays, a consistent and sufficient pay scale, recognition
of their union without discrimination, and conversion of the factories
to closed union shops. That last proviso was the most difficult to sell
to employers. While the lady strikers were developing for themselves this
assertive new identity, their employers struggled to accept and later
reconcile the change. The press, too, at first had difficulty taking the
striking ladies seriously, but as the strike wore on, newspapers bolstered
the picketers’ fight. Swayed by the appeals of upper-class politically
minded socialite women, publications ran pieces sympathetic to these women’s
cause and their emerging identity. Perspectives of the strike -- from
the strikers themselves to their employers to the press -- varied from
the inception of the demonstration in November 1909 to its end in February
1910.
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