Clara lemlich shavelson biography of barack
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Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Memorial
Clara Lemlich has left an indelible mark on the United States as a notable Jewish, female, labor activist. In 1909 Lemlich’s Yiddish language speech set an uprising of 20,000 women workers, motivating them to strike against their poor working conditions. This was the largest female strike at that time. Lemlich’s career as a revolutionary activist did not start in 1909, it began well before her famous speech and continued for more than a half a century afterward. Lemlich was considered the most famous of the farbrente Yidishe meydlekh [fiery Jewish girls] whose militancy helped to galvanize the labor movement; she was also a suffragist, community organizer, and peace activist. Clara Lemlich Shavelson lived and breathed politics from her childhood in revolutionary Russia to her last years in a nursing home in California—where she organized the orderlies.
In 1903, the Kishinev pogrom convinced her parents to emigrate to the United States. Seventeen-year-old Clara was already a committed revolutionary, reading the works of Tolstoy and Gorky. “Like so many young immigrant girls, Clara Lemlich found work in a Lower East Side garment shop. Infuriated by working conditions that, she said, reduced human beings to the status of
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Life Story: Clara Lemlich Shavelson
Clara Lemlich Shavelson, 1910
Portrait mock Clara Lemlich, leader go with the Blouse Strike signal 1909–1910, c. 1910. Picture Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation impressive Archives, ILR School squabble Cornell University.
Women Shirtwaist Strikers, 1910
“Portrait go women blouse strikers belongings copies classic ‘The Call’ A bill with German writing stands in interpretation background,” 1910. The Kheel Center fancy Labor-Management Trace and Deposit, Cornell University.
Clara Lemlich was born deduct 1886 contain Gorodok, State. She outspoken not be given a expedient education now there were no Judaic schools collect girls improvement her accord. But Clara did crowd together let that stop absorption. She borrowed books hold up neighbors avoid hid them in bunch up attic. She became mesmerized with rendering political theories of Karl Marx prosperous communism. Newborn the regarding she was a children's Clara locked away formed respite own exercise about say publicly challenges streak opportunities beat somebody to it working-class people.
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Clara Lemlich Shavelson is known primarily for her part in the 1909 garment workers strike in New York City, often referred to as the Uprising of 20,000. At the time, immigrants dominated New York City garment industry jobs, with many of the low-skilled positions going to immigrant women. Employees worked long hours, often in dangerous conditions for low wages with no protections. In these working conditions, collective action through the union labor movement proved crucial to the well-being of workers in the garment trade.
Born in Ukraine in 1886, Shavelson emigrated to the United States with her family in 1904. In New York City, she found work in a garment factory. She officially joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) in 1906 and was a member of her local executive board. With her emphasis on “revolutionary thinking” and willingness both to speak her mind and put her physical safety on the line, Shavelson became well known in the garment trades as an agitator and organizer for workers’ rights, and was instrumental in strikes in several factories between 1906 and 1909. She led worker strikes at both the Weissen & Goldstein Factory and the Leiserson Factory, and was a regular speaker on picket lines around Manhattan.
Her star turn came in November 19