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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 6, 1900
New York, New York – Garment Workers Meet to Establish International Union
From the New York Tribune of June 4, 1900:
An international union of cloakmakers and garment workers was formed in this city yesterday [June 3rd]. Delegates from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark and other cities met in convention in the Labor Lyceum, No. 64 East Fourth-st. The new organization will be known as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Officers were elected as follows: Herman Grossman, president; Marcus O. Braff [Bernard Braff], secretary. General Executive Board—Isadore Silverman, Baltimore; Samuel Salat, New York; Joseph Schwarz, Philadelphia; Adolph Schwerger [Schweiger], Philadelphia, and Jacob Leibowitz, Newark.
President Grossman said that the principal objects of the organization included agitation for the adoption of union labels on all manufactured garments and the regulation of prices when feasible. It is expected that local unions will not only be formed in cities in the United States, but also in Canada. Between forty thousand and fifty thousand garment workers, the president said, would be represented in the new National body. The convention will be continued to-day.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Rose Schneiderman Quote, “Stand Together to Resist”
NY Independent Apr 27, 1905
Cap Makers Story, NY, Mar 1905
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=vPtGAQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA938
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-June 4, 1900
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1900-06-04/ed-1/seq-12/
See also:
The Women’s Garment Workers
A History of the International Ladies’ Garment Worker’s Union
-Louis Levine
B.W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1924
https://books.google.com/books?id=DcRIAAAAYAAJ
https://books.google.com/books?id=TTXUAAAAMAAJ
p103 re June 3, 1900 – NYC Labor Lyceum
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=DcRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA103
On June 3, 1900, eleven delegates representing seven unions in four cities, met at the Labor Lyceum, 64 East Fourth Street, New York City. There were two delegates from the United Brotherhood of Cloak Makers, two from the Skirt Makers’ Union No. 1 of Greater New York, two from the Cloak Makers’ Protective Union of Philadelphia, two from the Cloak Pressers’ Union of Philadelphia, one from the Cloak Makers’ Union of Baltimore, one from the Cloak Makers’ Union of Brownsville, and one from the Cloak Makers’ Union of Newark, New Jersey. All together, they represented about 2000 organized members.
Joseph Barondess and Herman Robinson, organizer of the American Federation of Labor, were invited to open the conference. The delegates voted in favor of organizing a national union of all the workers in the women’s garment industry and adopted the name of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. A label was adopted, and officers were elected. Out of the eleven delegates present, Herman Grossman was elected president, and Bernard Braff general secretary-treasurer. Adolph Schweiger, S. Salat, Philip Schwartz of Philadelphia, I. Silberman of Baltimore, and A. Leibovits of Newark were elected members of the General Executive Board, of which the president and secretary were members ex-officio. Each local union represented at the conference was assessed $10 to create a fund with which to begin the work of organization. The income of the International was to be derived from a per capita tax of 1 cent per member per week.
[Paragraph break and emphasis added.]
ILGWU CONVENTION REPORTS AND PROCEEDINGS, 1900-1929
https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/ilgwuconv/
ILGWU Convention Reports and Proceedings, 1900
https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/ilgwuconv/20/
Minutes from the First ILGWU Meeting
-New York, June 3, 1900
https://ilgwu.ilr.cornell.edu/archives/minutes/transcript-FirstMeetingMinutes.html
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Union Maid – Billy Bragg & Compay
Lyrics Woody Guthrie