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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 26, 1910
New York, New York – How the Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Began
From the Duluth Labor World of January 22, 1910:
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By ROBERTUS LOVE.
[Part II of II.]
How General Strike Began.
The general strike was not declared until Nov. 22, when at a great mass meeting in the hall of Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln made his first speech in the east, President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor delivered an address on the shirt waist workers’ situation. A Jewish girl [Clara Lemlich], representing many thousands of her nationality who work in the waist shops, advanced to the front of the platform and delivered in Yiddish an appeal to those of her race to strike immediately. More than 2,000 right hands went up in response. The sentiment for an immediate and wholesale strike spread to the Italian and American shirt waist makers, and the “walk out” of seven-eighths of those employed in that industry was the result.
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Most of the labor is paid for by the piece. The girls are not asking higher pay for piecework, but merely a readjustment as to working hours so that they will not be worked beyond their endurance. Another grievance is that frequently when they reported for work in the morning the bosses insisted that they wait until noon, then informed them that there was no work for the day. The girls demand that they be notified at the starting hour whether or not there is work.
What do the girls who make the shirt waists worn by women all over America earn? Some of the younger and less experienced ones make only $3.50 to $4 per week Others earn as high as $25 a week. The average seems to be somewhere between $8 and $10. Thousands of them support hot only themselves, but sick or disabled parents and several little brothers and sisters.
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Philadelphia Girls Out.
A few days before Christmas several thousand shirt waist workers in Philadelphia went on strike, the New York bosses having placed orders with the Philadelphia shops to manufacture waists for them during the struggle.
Whatever the opponent of trades unionism may think of the matter, it cannot be disputed that the loyalty of the great majority of the striking girls to their cause is a direct refutation of the ancient aphorism that you can’t get women to stand together. These 35,000 shirt waist women stood together in solid phalanx while the grinning wolves of hunger snarled viciously at the doors of nearly all their homes.
The recognition of their union, their right to organize for mutual benefit, they insist upon to the letter. This great strike therefore is essentially a struggle upon the part of women workers for “the closed shop.” For that reason if for no other the strike is of worldwide sociological interest.
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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
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Jan 22, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/49583573/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 25, 1910
New York, New York – Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Making History
“Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part I
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 25, 1909
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich, Young Garment Worker, Calls for General Strike at Mass Meeting at Cooper Union Hall
Tag: NYC Waistmakers Uprising of 1909-1910
https://weneverforget.org/tag/nyc-waistmakers-uprising-of-1909-1910/
Tag: Clara Lemlich
https://weneverforget.org/tag/clara-lemlich/
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Bread & Roses – John Denver