Hellraisers Journal: “How Girls Can Strike” -William Mailly on Uprising of the 20,000 for The Progressive Woman

Share

Quote Esther of NYC Uprising Beaten by Father n Brother, Prog Wmn p6, Feb 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 4, 1910
New York, New York – Girls Persist Despite Hunger, Cold and Beatings

From The Progressive Woman of February 1910:

How Girls Can Strike

BY WILLIAM MAILLY

“A whole lot has been published about what the rich women have done in this shirtwaist strike,” said a woman friend, “but I haven’t seen very much about what the girls themselves have done. Why isn’t something said about them?”

I had been going the rounds of the halls where the shop meetings of the strikers were held, collecting the proceeds from the Special Strike Edition of the Call. It was a dull, wet day, the East Side streets were slippery and dirty with a nasty mush consisting of a week-old snow mixed with the regular refuse that the rich metropolis is too poor to remove promptly from its working class districts. One did not walk through such streets; one slid, splashed and floundered and felt lucky to be able to do that without falling. And the cold rain soaked one through to the skin in short order.

Uprising Scab Scared of Girl Strikers, New York Call p4, Dec 29, 1909

I was leaving Astoria hall on East Fourth street when Gottlieb, the chairman of Casino hall, across the street, accosted me. He was accompanied by a young girl. She was thinly clad, her clothes were shabby, her shoes were torn and sodden, and her face and hands blue with cold.

“Mr. Mailly,” said Gottlieb, “look at this girl. I want to tell you about her. This is the worst case I have in our hall. It’s the worst case I’ve heard of. This girl is only sixteen years old—she has no father or mother living; she has no relatives or friends; she has only been in this country about six months; she can hardly talk English.

“Listen, Mr. Mailly.” Gottlieb was getting more excited as he went on.

This girl hasn’t had anything to eat all day—she is hungry-she must have something—and we can’t give it to her. Also she can not pay the rent of the room she lives in—she must get out if she cannot pay. We can do nothing; we have nothing.

And listen. Think of it. This girl, she got from a man a five-dollar bill for one copy of the Call in the Cafe Monopole on Second avenue today and she brought it in and gave it over to me. And she so hungry and with not a cent, and we needn’t have known she got that five dollars. Think of it! And she says she won’t scab-she doesn’t care what happens to her. But oh, Mr. Mailly, we must help her. You must give her something now. I have brought her to show you.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “How Girls Can Strike” -William Mailly on Uprising of the 20,000 for The Progressive Woman”

Hellraisers Journal: New York Call Extra: “Shirtwaist Strikers Present Facts of Great Struggle to the Public of New York City”

Share

Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 30, 1909
New York, New York – The Call Supports Uprising of Shirtwaist Makers

From The New York Call of December 29, 1909:

New York Call Extra Uprising Edition, p1, Dec 29, 1909

SHIRTWAIST STRIKERS PRESENT FACTS OF GREAT
STRUGGLE TO THE PUBLIC OF NEW YORK CITY

—–

WORKING GIRLS’ STRIKE RESULT OF OPPRESSION
—–
Discontent With Shop Conditions Had Been Steadily Growing
for Years-What Led Up to Present Situation-Employers
Desperate and Losing Ground Rapidly, While Strikers
Are Standing Solid, but Financial Aid Is Needed.
—–

By WILLIAM MAILLY.

When 30,000 workers in one trade, mostly girls under twenty years of age, quit work with one accord and go on a general strike almost without warning and with little preparation there must be some exceptional reason for their action.

The present strike of shirtwaist makers is an exceptional strike. Behind it is a long, bitter story of working conditions that had gradually become unbearable-a story of low wages that went lower in hard times, but never higher in good times, of long hours of day and night and Sunday labor in the busy season and idleness or semi-idleness in the dull season, of unsanitary shop conditions, with poor light, foul air and unhealthy surroundings, of the tyranny, and some times worse, of petty bosses and foreman, of a subcontracting system which relieved the manufacturer, so-called, of responsibility, but made it possible for contractors to employ labor at beggarly wages and to reap large profits-all these things had combined to make the general lot of the shirtwaist makers miserable, degrading and increasingly oppressive.

And these things prevailed because the shirtwaist makers were unorganized. They had no union. They were competing among themselves to their own undoing and the great benefit of their employers. They were helpless to resist oppression because they not act together. They were victims because they submitted being victimized.

What Led to the Revolt.

But a change had to come. Such a state of things could cannot prevail indefinitely. And when the change did come it came all the more quickly because the force that impelled it had been gaining strength for so long a time. Like a long-smoldering volcano that suddenly erupts, so the growing discontent among the shirtwaist-makers found vent in a revolt that burst forth within a few hours…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New York Call Extra: “Shirtwaist Strikers Present Facts of Great Struggle to the Public of New York City””