Today in Labor History June 3, 1900: The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded. In 1909, they led the Uprising of 20,000, a 14-wk strike sparked by a walkout at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, that led to a General Strike. Management used thugs to brutally beat the women, while police looked the other way. In 1910, they led an even bigger strike, The Great Revolt, of 60,000 cloak-makers. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in 1911, prompted many more women to join the union. In 1919, many members left to join the Communist Party. Many of those who remained were anarchists with dual membership in the radical IWW. They challenged the autocratic leadership of the ILGWU. The 1920s was marred by sectarian battles between left- and right-wing factions and violence by hired gangsters. Ironically, it was Arnold Rothstein (the Jewish gangster who created the Black Sox scandal, and who mentored Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano) who got the gangsters to withdraw from the union.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #union #strike #ilgwu #IWW #TriangleShirtwaist #mafia #LuckyLuciano #GeneralStrike #communism #anarchism

Via @michiganradio -

"Phyllis Michael Wong, historian, educator, and author of We Kept Our Towns Going: The Gossard Girls of Michigan’s #UpperPeninsula, named a Michigan Notable Book"

on Stateside, Wednesday May 3 2023.

https://www.michiganradio.org/show/stateside/2023-05-03/stateside-wednesday-may-3-2023

book:

https://msupress.org/9781611864205/we-kept-our-towns-going/

#AADL :

https://aadl.org/catalog/record/10545465

of interest to @tim - unionization in rural garment workers.

Geraldine Gordon Defant, #ILGWU Union Organizer (p. 150), was a family friend

[ #yooper #ishpeming #gossard ]

Today in Labor History February 15, 1910: The ILGWU declared the Uprising of Twenty Thousand shirtwaist strike officially over. The garment workers strike began September 27, 1909, in response to abysmal wages and safety conditions. The majority of striking workers were immigrant women, mostly Yiddish-speaking Jews (75%) and Italians (10%), and mostly under the age of 20. Five women died in the strike, which the union won, signing contracts with 339 manufacturing firms. However, 13 firms, including Triangle Shirtwaist Company, never settled. One of the demands had been for adequate fire escapes and for open doors to the streets for emergencies. In 1911, 146 girls and women were killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #TriangleShirtwaistFire #strike #ilgwu #uprising #union #PoliceBrutality #massacre #immigrants #wages #yiddish #italian #women #feminism

Today in Labor History December 6, 1965: Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor organizer, died. She was the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Lady Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) from 1933-1944. She was born in Ukraine, to a Jewish family, in 1896. As a child, she read Bakunin from her father’s library. She participated in the 1909 Shirtwaist strike, and helped organize for the release of Sacco and Vanzetti. She wrote for the anarchist and labor press, in both Yiddish and English.

#anarchist #anarchism #rosepesotta #ilgwu #workingclass #labor #yiddish #ukraine #strike #union #jewish