That time a young woman led a massive strike that brought an industry to its knees
Clara Lemlich, the uprising of 20,000 women and their surprising allies
New York City, 1909
The hall at Cooper Union was crowded with garment workers, men and women alike, though it mostly men talking for hours and hours. Some frustrated factory and sweatshop workers had been striking here and there, with little organization or effect. The Union leaders gave speech after speech offering support but stressing caution. This tepid response didn’t satisfy those who were angry about the problems that plagued them: low, stagnant wages, endless hours, unsafe working conditions. The female workers—and there were many—were also sick of workplace harassment.
Finally, the voice of one young woman rises above them all:
“I move we go on a general strike!”
The crowd roared its agreement. And the next day, November 23, 1909 they did indeed go on strike. Twenty thousand garment workers—almost entirely young women—took to the streets of New York City. At that point, it was the largest strike in history.
Just a girl in the world
The girl was Clara Lemlich and she was just twenty-three years-old at the time. She was born in Ukraine to deeply religious parents. She loved learning and reading; to earn money for books she sewed buttons on shirts and wrote letters from illiterate women to their children in America.
When she arrived in New York at the age of 17, she found work in in the Lower East Side. She and her fellow lady workers labored to make the popular “shirtwaists” that had become fashionable for women. Shirtwaists were also among the first “ready to wear” style that a woman could buy at a store instead of making at home. But someone had to make that affordable fashion and garment workers certainly did.
Since her arrival in New York, Clara had already warned the male union leaders that they needed to include women in their unions, but men did their thing and ignored her. She went ahead and organized women anyway and led them in smaller strikes to prove her point that they needed women. If there were any doubts, her words at that rally, and what followed, showed them that working women were a force to be reckoned with.
She stood up and declared:
“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 to decide is whether we shall or shall not strike. I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared—now.”
The next day she was joined by twenty-thousand garment workers—mostly Jewish women. Their grievances could have applied to any factory or sweat shop labor, but it was the young women with the gumption and guts to walk off the job and onto the picket line.
It was not pretty, or peaceful. They began their strike in November and kept it up through the cold winter months. The factory owners fought back by hiring men to beat and harass the protestors. The police officers were in league with the bullies and arrested to the women and charged them with assault. Judges then gave the women fines or even sentences to the workhouse.
Clara herself suffered six broken ribs and was arrested seventeen times.
The women were cold, hurt and hungry. But still, they kept marching.
The Mink Brigade joins the chat
The picket line was full of young, poor, immigrant women day after day. But they weren’t alone—they were also joined by some of the richest women in the world, like Alva Belmont and Anne Morgan (daughter of JP), Dorothy Whitney Straight (of the Whitney family), and Arabella Huntington (the richest woman in America).
They were called “the Mink Brigade” after the fur coats they wore. Their presence on the picket line served a few, helpful purposes. The police were less likely to be violent when “Respectable Ladies” were on the line. In the words of one organizer:
…they lent prestige and, more important, an aura of respectability to our demonstrations. This was most important for it helped to weaken the attempts of the unsympathetic to force the women back to work through prison sentences and physical violence.
They didn’t just march; they also paid for food and rent for the striking workers and bailed them out of jail. They attracted the press. There were still tensions between the working women and wealthy women, but I think it’s so important to highlight this story not of class tensions, but collaboration across different classes. These women did not led the world divide them.
Working women of the world, unite!
In the end, they won some, but not all, of their demands. It would take the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy a few years later to really drive home the need for serious workplace safety reform and regulation.
For obvious reasons, Clara could not go back to work in the garment trade. Instead, she kept organizing. She turned her attention to the women’s suffrage movement. She organized wives and mothers and even founded the United Council of Working-Class Housewives (in addition to getting married and having three children).
But something else was won with that strike: women got a sense of their own power.
I did not learn about Clara and uprising of 20,000 in school and I am not at all surprised. Because there are so many things our status quo does not want women and girls to take away from this powerful and true moment in history:
A young woman has the confidence and gumption to interrupt a bunch of old men in front of hall full of people. (No imposter syndrome here!).
A young woman taps into the frustration of her sisters and leads them on a massive strike, the scale of which has never been seen before.
Rich women used their wealth and privilege to support their working sisters in their efforts. They put their bodies and bank accounts on the line for them in their fight—and didn’t try to make it about their own issues.
Clara, a labor activist, went on to work for the woman’s suffrage movement (it was never a cause by or for only privileged housewives).
While men were hedging, working women risked their safety and security to team up to make the world safer and more fair for all of us.
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I will read more! Thank you!
Maya, what a great story, and no, I never learnt it in school either. Thanks for telling it. In this day and age, we need all the reminders we can get.