23 Year-Old Clara Lemlich Shavelson Inspires “Uprising of 20,000” Strike of Shirtwaist Workers
Twenty-three year-old Clara Lemlich, a shirtwaist worker in New York City, delivered a rousing speech in Yiddish at Cooper Union on this day and inspired an eleven-week strike of 20,000 to 30,000 shirtwaist workers.
Lemlich had emigrated to the U.S. from the Ukraine at age 16 and found work in the shirtwaist industry. (Shirtwaist garments were basically blouses. New York City had emerged as the center of the industry.) Lemlich married Joe Shavelson the following year, and is generally referred to by her married name.
The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was at the time led by conservatives who did not regard women workers as equals of men workers. The ILGWU leadership was replaced by more radical and egalitarian socialists in 1914.
On this day Shavelson listened to two hours of speeches by male labor leaders, and finally demanded to be heard. Her speech, described in the press as a “Yiddish philippic,” ignited the audience of largely Jewish workers. The audience finally recited a secularized adaptation of a Hebrew oath, pledging their support for a general strike.
The strike, which became known as the “Uprising of 20,000,” began the next day and lasted for eleven months. It ended on February 15, 1910 with the workers gaining some important gains, but not all of them. Most of the Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers (339 out of 353) signed contracts with the union, including a 52-hour work week (considered a major victory in those years).
For her unionizing efforts, which began before this day, Shavelson was arrested 17 times and suffered broken ribs from beatings by the police. (She hid her injuries from her parents.) Shavelson joined the Communist Party in 1926 and remained a loyal party member until her death on July 25, 1982.
The most famous –and notorious event– in the shirtwaist industry was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on March 25, 1911, in which 146 workers dies (123 women and 23 men) died, either from fire, smoke inhalation, or from jumping to their deaths. Many were trapped in the building because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits to keep workers from taking breaks or leaving the building.
The tragedy eventually led to thirty-eight pieces legislation improving working conditions and requiring safety standards for factory buildings, including better entrances to building, fireproofing, fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems, among other labor-related reforms.
The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City Landmark.
Learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Read about the tragedy: Christine Siefert, The Factory Girls: A Kaleidoscopic Account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (2017)
See the documentary film: Triangle: Remembering the Fire (2016)