Tag: Women’s Trade Union League

Hellraisers Journal: Calumet Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners to Hold Christmas Eve Party for Strikers’ Children at Italian Hall

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Ellis B Harris Children of the Poor, MI MB p2, Nov 11, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 23, 1913
Calumet, Michigan – Strikers’ Children Will Receives Gifts at Christmas Eve Party

Christmas Eve Party to be Given
for Strikers’ Children 

Annie Clemenc w Flag, ISR p342, Dec 1913

The Calumet Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners will hold a Christmas party for the children of the strikers on Christmas Eve. The party will be held in the Italian Hall in Red Jacket. Annie Clemenc, president of #15, has taken the lead in planning for the event, and she has been energetic in raising money for gifts for the children. For many of the striker’s children, these will be their only Christmas presents. The children will receive candy, hats, mittens, and even a few toys.

The children’s party will begin at 2 p. m. There will be a party later in the evening for the adults.

The Calumet Women’s Auxiliary was organize in September, and each member is a card-carrying member of the Western Federation of Miners, but, sadly a member without a vote. And yet these women make their voices heard, marching in the parades, facing the deputies, the Waddell men, the militiamen, and going to jail right along side their striking husbands, fathers, and brothers.

Annie is well known for leading the daily early-morning parades with her massive American flag.

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Calumet Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners to Hold Christmas Eve Party for Strikers’ Children at Italian Hall” →

Hellraisers Journal: Chairman Frederick Boyd Reports: Pageant Yields Deficit of $1,996 Rather Than Profit of $6,000

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 28, 1913
New York, New York – Frederick Boyd Issues Financial Report on Paterson Pageant

From The New York Times of June 25, 1913:

DEFICIT OF $1,996 FROM STRIKE SHOW

———-
Instead of Making Rumored $6,000 Profit,
Paterson I.W.W. Lost by Pageant at Garden.
———-

MANY LOANS STILL UNPAID
———-
But All Who Cannot Afford Loss Got Their Money
-Good Seats Sold for Almost Nothing.
———-

Scene from Paterson Pageant WNF, NY Tb p4, June 8, 1913

Despite the statements, made after the Paterson strike pageant in Madison Square Garden, that it would net $6,000 to the strike fund, the Executive Committee of the strike announced yesterday that when all expenses were paid there would be a deficit of $1,996.45.

The greater part of this is due to sympathizers who advanced money to help the show, but the committee says that the loans still unpaid were furnished by people in comfortable circumstances who could afford the loss, while the loans from actual strikers had been paid back already.

Frederick Sumner Boyd, Chairman of the Executive Committee, had a conference yesterday with Miss Jessie Ashley, a lawyer, of 27 Cedar Street, who was Treasurer of the Entertainment Committee, and others, and a statement of the receipts and expenditures was prepared to show the Paterson strikers where all the money went to. The Socialist Party has nothing to do with the Industrial Workers of the World, but individual Socialists are members of the I. W. W., and Miss Ashley is one of these.

In discussing yesterday’s criticisms of the managers of the pageant and the questions which had been asked as to what had become of the rumored $6,000 profit, she said it was outrageous to hint that there had been dishonesty on the part of the strike leaders, unless figures could be produced to show that there had been irregularities.

Frederick Sumner Boyd, after the conference in Miss Ashley office, said for the committee:

“Miss Ashley was the first treasurer of the pageant, but becoming tied up with other duties, Mrs. Florence Wise of the Women’s Trades Union League took her place. At first it looked as if the pageant would be a source of profit, when the expenses began to pile up, and we were uncertain of a paying audience, we began to be afraid of a breakdown. At one time we had practically decided to abandon the pageant, but as we had made contracts and had incurred expenses we should have to meet in any case, we decided to pull the entertainment through.

“We had to raise $3,000 for expenses, so we called a meeting of the entire committee and of five delegates of the New York silk strikers. We told them the entertainment could not be brought off-but the delegates insisted that it must be. It was decided to raise the $3,000, and within twenty-four hours John Steiger brought in $1,600 and Miss Mabel Dodge collected $600. About $1,000 more was raised from various sources. Then we went ahead.”

Boyd then went on to explain the deficit, he said that neither Haywood, Reed, Miss Dodge, or others associated with them directly had anything to do with handling the money, except to sell a few tickets.….

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Chairman Frederick Boyd Reports: Pageant Yields Deficit of $1,996 Rather Than Profit of $6,000” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, WV on Trial re Military Court Martial, Speech NYC Carnegie Hall, NYCl p, May 28, 1913, per Foner—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 29, 1913
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall

From The New York Call of May 27, 1913:

Ad for Mother Jones at Carnegie Hall, NYC p, May 27, 1913

From The New York Call of May 28, 1913:

This was the scene, as described by the New York Call, when Mother Jones was introduced by Max Eastman last night at Carnegie Hall:

Scarcely had her name left his lips then the audience burst into shouting, stamping, and handclapping. Several women surged down the aisle toward the stage and threw kisses to the aged agitator and flowers at her feet.

Mother Jones spoke at length about the West Virginia strike, the terror inflicted on the miners by the gun thugs, and the mass round-up of strikers by the military. She referred to West Virginia as “The Little Russia in America.” She sounded this warning:

West Virginia is on trial before the bar of the nation. The military arrests and the court martial to which I and others were forced to undergo in West Virginia was the first move ever made by the ruling class to have the working class tried by the military and not civil courts. It is up to the American workers to make sure that it is the last.

The comfortable New York Socialist were not spared the ire of Mother Jones:

What galled me most about my confinement at the military prison at Pratt, West Virginia, was the knowledge that a bunch of corporation lickspittles had the right to confine me. But I must be frank and tell you that the second thing that galled me was the silence of many here tonight who should have shouted out against the injustice. I would still be in jail if Senator Kern had not introduced his resolution… No thanks, then, to you that I am here today. Cowards! Moral cowards! If you had only risen to your feet like men and said, “We don’t allow military despotism in America! Stop it!” A lot of moral cowards you are. Not a word of protest did we get out of you, but instead you sat idly by and let these things be.

The New York Call continued:

After Mother had spoken a collection was taken up and $267.80 contributed. It was intended for the striking miners. Mother Jones announced the miners would take care of the miners, and said the collection could go to the Paterson silk strikers.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Anna Rudnitzky of the Chicago Garment Makers’ Strike of 1910

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 21, 1912
Photograph of Anna Rudnitzky of the 1910 Chicago Garment Makers’ Strike

From The Progressive Woman of November 1912:

Anna Rudnitzky of Chicago Garment Strike of 1910, Prg Wmn p5, Nov 1912

From Life and Labor of April 1912:

Life and Labor p99, Apr 1912

 Time Is Passing

[by Anna Rudnitzky]

Anna Rudnitzky of Chicago, Prg Wmn p5, Nov 1912
Anna Rudnitzky

I HAVE so much I want to say. What bothers me most is time is passing. Time is passing and everything is missed. I am not living, I am just working.

But life means so much, it holds so much, and I have no time for any of it; I just work. Am I not right?

In the busy time I work so hard; try to make the machine run faster and faster because then I can earn some money and I need it, and then night comes, and I am tired out and I go home and I am too weary for anything but supper and bed. Sometimes union meetings, yes, because I must go. But I have no mind and nothing left in me. The busy time means to earn enough money not only for today but to cover the slack time, and then when the slack time comes I am not so tired, I have more time, but I have no money, and time is passing and everything is missed.

Romance needs time. We can think about it, yes, but to live it needs time. Music I love, to hear it makes me happy, but it is passing. The operas and the theatres and the dramas, they are here but for me they are just passing. To study, to go to high school, to the university, I have no time and I have no money.

Then the world is so beautiful. I see the pictures of the trees and the great rivers and the mountains, and away back in Russia I was told about Niagara Falls. Now why if I work all day and do good work, why is there never a chance for me to see all these wonders?

I have been thinking. First we must get a living wage and then we must get a shorter work-day, and many, many more girls must do some thinking. It isn’t that they do not want to think, but they are too tired to think and that is the best thing in the Union, it makes us think. I know the difference it makes to girls and that is the reason I believe in the Union. It makes us stronger and it makes us happier and it makes us more interested in life and to be more interested is oh, a thousand times better than to be so dead that one never sees anything but work all day and not enough money to live on. That is terrible, that is like death.

And so now the Women’s Trade Union League has helped me so much, and the Union has helped me so much, and I want to help others, and so we must have “Life and Labor” written in Yiddish too so that all the Jewish girls can understand. And then I think we ought to have it in Polish and Bohemian and Lithunian and Italian. Can you do this? How can I help you to do it?

“Life and Labor” is great!

ANNA RUDNITZKY

[Emphasis added.] 

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Anna Rudnitzky of the Chicago Garment Makers’ Strike of 1910” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Rose S, Triangle Fire Mourners March, Girls at Top of Buildings, NY Tb p2, Apr 6, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911
“The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II

From Life and Labor of May 1911:

The Triangle Fire

By Martha Bensley Bruere

Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?

Triangle Fire, Mourning Procession, LnL p139, May 1911

Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:

NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify
their customers that they are in good working order.
HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.

The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.

That is what the employers have done.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Morris Rosenfeld fr Triangle Requiem, JDF Mar 29, 1911, L Stein 1962—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 5, 1911
“The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I

From Life and Labor of May 1911:

The Triangle Fire

By Martha Bensley Bruere

The Triangle Shirt Waist Shop in New York City, which was the scene of the great fire on March 25th, when 143 [146] workers were killed, was also the starting point of the strike of the forty-thousand shirt waist workers in 1909.

Triangle Fire, Some Girl Victims, NY Eve Wld p3, Mar 27, 1911

The girls struck because they wished to stand together for decent shop conditions,  wages on which they could live and reasonable hours, and neither Mr. Harris nor Mr. Blanck, both of whom were members of the Manufacturers’ Association, would allow their workers to unite in any way at all.

It happened that I did picket duty morning and night before that shop and saw the striking girls go up to the strike-breakers and ask timidly:

“Don’t you know there’s a strike by the Triangle?”

It was before this Triangle Shop that the girls were clubbed by the police and by the hired thugs who assisted them; and it was in the streets around it that a large number of arrests were made. The girl pickets were dragged to court, but every one from this shop was discharged. The police and the government of the city had banded themselves together to protect the property of Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Shirt Waist firm.

The six hundred girls who worked at the Triangle Shop were beaten in the strike. They had to go back without the recognition of the union and with practically no change in conditions. On the 25th of March it was these same policemen who bad clubbed them and beaten them back into submission, who kept the thousands in Washington Square from tramping upon their dead bodies, sent for the ambulances to carry them away, and lifted them one by one into the receiving coffins which the Board of Charities sent down in wagon loads.

I was coming down Fifth Avenue on that Saturday afternoon when a great swirling, billowing cloud of smoke swept like a giant streamer out of Washington Square and down upon the beautiful homes in lower Fifth Avenue. Just as I was turning into the Square two young girls whom I knew to be working in the vicinity came rushing toward me, tears were running from their eyes and they were white and shaking as they caught me by the arm.

“Oh,” shrieked one of them, “they are jumping.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I -from Life and Labor, Official Organ of WTUL” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Rose S, Triangle Fire Mourners March, Girls at Top of Buildings, NY Tb p2, Apr 6, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 4, 1911
Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:

THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY

BY LOUIS DUCHEZ

Photographs by American Press Ass’n.

[Part II of II.]

Triangle Fire, Fire Hose n Ladder, ISR p666, May 1911

Violations of the law? Yes, enough to hang half a dozen rich exploiters and politicians. But these men won’t hang.

The owner of the building claimed he lived up to the letter of the law. So did the owners of the shirtwaist concern, Blanck and Harris. They blame the city officials. The State Commission of Labor also blames the city officials. On the other hand, the city officials are hunting for someone to point to. One of these gentlemen divides the guilt between God and the “public conscience.”

The more important facts, however, are as follows: While the holocaust was taking place the superintendent of public buildings, Rudolph P. Miller, was on a pleasure trip to Panama. Under questioning conducted by Fire Marshal Beers he admitted that the Asch building, in which the fire took place, had not been inspected since it was built, ten years ago. He said he was not even sure that he passed on the building before it was occupied. Miller is not an architect; he is simply a civil engineer-with a “pull.” In his testimony he also admitted that he knew of “graft” from building owners being accepted by inspectors. Miller blamed the police department.

According to the state law, “fire-proof” buildings need not put up more than one fire escape. And that’s all the Asch building had. And this one was useless. When the flames heated the flimsy iron work. it bent like wire. Besides, the scaling ladders were not fit to use and the extension ladders reached only to the 6th floor. The hose, too, was rotten, and the fire apparatus was only so in name. Then iron shutters blocked the fire escape, such as it was.

The locked doors have been mentioned. There was no fire escape to the roof. The machines were so closely packed together, in order to save space. that a panic resulted when the fire first started. Large piles of combustible goods obstructed every aisle and opening, also, if the building and conditions had been deliberately planned for the cremation of human beings, it could not have been more perfect.

To look at the Asch building since the fire one could not tell from the outside that anything had happened to it, were it not for the broken windows. As a matter of fact, the damage only reached $5,000. Everything was insured-but the slaves.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Rose Schneiderman Quote, Life So Cheap, NY Met Opera Hse, Apr 2, Survey p84, Apr 8, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 3, 1911
Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:

THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY

BY LOUIS DUCHEZ

Photographs by American Press Ass’n.

[Part I of II.]

Triangle Fire, Fire Hose n Ladder, ISR p666, May 1911

TRUTH is, indeed, stranger than fiction.

As I write this story of the bold, brutal and cold-blooded murder of one hundred and twenty-five [129] girls, averaging nineteen years of age, and twenty [17] men, here in New York, I wonder if what I have seen and heard and felt is real.

It was Saturday evening, March 25. Only five minutes more and the slaves at the sewing machines would be hurrying to their “homes,” carrying their starvation wages for the week. More than 500 of them were employed by the Triangle Waist Company, the non-union concern which led the fight on the shirt waist girls more than a year ago. The slave pen was located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a “fire proof” building in the very heart of the congested section of the city.

In some corner unknown on the eighth floor highly inflammable materials caught fire. Before anyone had time to look around big tongues of flame were licking up everything in the room.

A general rush was made for the elevators and stairways. The elevators did their best, but during the few minutes in which the tragedy occurred only fifty girls were lowered.

The stairways were the principal ways of escape—and the doors leading to these stairways were locked. For it was the custom of this firm, as it is the custom in other shirtwaist factories in New York, to lock the doors after work begins in the morning and to keep them locked all day, so that the employes may be searched before going home for pieces of goods, thread or buttons, and so that they may be prevented from going out and “stealing time” during the day.

Everywhere throughout the three floors silk and cotton goods hung from racks or were piled up on tables, and the little blaze which started in the unknown corner was like a spark in a powder magazine. In ten minutes the three floors were all afire. Huge clouds of flame belched from nearly every window.

Finding the doors locked to the stairways, the girls rushed to the windows. With their hair and clothes afire, they leaped from the eighth, ninth and tenth story windows. Some were seen climbing upon the sills and deliberately plunging to the pavement. Others, it is said, were pushed out by the pressure behind. In one instance two girls came down from the ninth story in each other‘s arms. Others were seen embracing and kissing each other before making the fatal leap.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Murder of the Shirt Waist Makers” by Louis Duchez, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: Citizen’s Mass Meeting Stands for Factory Fire Prevention after Triangle Disaster

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Rose Schneiderman Quote, Life So Cheap, NY Met Opera Hse, Apr 2, Survey p84, Apr 8, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 9, 1911
Mass Meeting at Metropolitan Opera House Stands for Fire Prevention

From The Survey of April 8, 1911:

The Survey Social Charitable Civic, Apr 8, 1911

THE COMMON WELFARE

PREVENTION OF FACTORY FIRES

Prevention was the keynote of the whole week in discussion of the Triangle factory fire in New York and in other industrial cities which have begun to take stock of their risks. There were many meetings, chief of which was the citizens’ mass meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, reported on succeeding pages, which resulted in the appointment of a committee of five made up of Eugene A. Philbin, chairman; Mary A. Dreier, Edward T. Devine, William Jay Schieffelin, Lillian D. Wald, and Peter Brady. The New York American has organized a committee on prevention of which Ernest Flagg, an eminent architect, is chairman and the other members are Fire Chief Croker, P. Tecumseh Sherman, formerly state commissioner of labor, and William Archer, a builder.

A conference under call of R. Fulton Cutting, president of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, appointed a committee consisting of Mr. Cutting, Franklin B. Kirkbride, Leopold Plaut, Homer Folks and John A. Kingsbury which, in conjunction with the mass meeting committee, is organizing a permanent body on fire prevention.

On Wednesday (after this issue had gone to press) public burial was given the eight unclaimed bodies and the workers of the city planned an enormous silent parade in their honor.

One of the events of the week was the opening of the Triangle Waist Company in another building. A violation of the law was immediately filed against it for installing a row of sewing machines in front of the exit to the fire-escapes. The proprietor asked the Ladies ‘ Shirtwaist Union to organize his shop, but no action was taken.

Real Triangle by Sloan re Fire, Survey p81, Apr 8, 1911 Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: Citizen’s Mass Meeting Stands for Factory Fire Prevention after Triangle Disaster” →

Hellraisers Journal: Women’s Trade Union League Joins Mass March for the Unidentified Victims of the Triangle Fire

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Rose S, Triangle Fire Mourners March, Girls at Top of Buildings, NY Tb p2, Apr 6, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 8, 1911
Women March in Cold Rain for Unidentified Victims of Triangle Fire

From the New York Tribune of April 6, 1911:

Triangle Fire, March in Downpour for Unidentified Victims, NY Tb p1, Apr 6, 1911

Triangle Fire, Rose S re We Marched by Buildings, NY Tb p1, Apr 6, 1911

There was majestic silence and sullen rain. But it was a silence that spoke. Their fellow workers to the number 145 had been launched into eternity as the result of the Asch Building fire on March 25. And so [thousands] marched in murmurless protest through the principal streets of the city yesterday.

The steady downpour did not divert girls  who were without umbrellas, without hats, without overshoes and rubber coats from their determination to show public honor to fellow workers who had perished…..

If the day had been filled with sunshine the funeral procession would have been impressive. Perhaps, however, there would then have been the chance to minimize the intensity of feeling existing among the marching members of the sympathizing unions. Only a high devotion and sense of duty could be responsible for yesterday’s protest.

Low hanging clouds and fog shrouded the tops of buildings. The Metropolitan tower was invisible above its clock. There was the suggestion of smoke in the atmosphere. The streets were filled with puddles of water. Women in lamb’s wool coats, accustomed to ride in automobiles, were splashed by passing vehicles as they trudged along in the beating rain, anxious to demonstrate the sympathy felt by the Woman Suffrage party. Hundreds of thousands stood on the sidewalks, their umbrellas appropriately indicating unbroken borders of black. Policemen, mounted and afoot, wore regulation black raincoats.

There was no playing of plaintive music, no muffled drum beat. The spectacle was without ostentation, flourish or display. Banners bore the legend “We mourn our loss” in black and white. There was a solemn expression on the faces of those who marched and those who watched from office buildings, stores and private houses. Flags on public buildings were at half-mast; thousands of other structures were draped in funeral decorations.

Triangle Fire, We Mourn Our Loss, NYC Apr 5, ISR p670, May 1911

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Women’s Trade Union League Joins Mass March for the Unidentified Victims of the Triangle Fire” →