Clara Lemlich (1886-1982) organized and empowered women from the working class to housewives, becoming the voice that incited the famous Uprising of the Twenty Thousand in 1909.
Clara Lemlich (1886-1982) organized and empowered women from the working class to housewives, becoming the voice that incited the famous Uprising of the Twenty Thousand in 1909.
History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, and Alex Jhamb Burns. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Luvvie Ajayi Jones. I’m a New York Times Best Selling author and host of the podcast Professional Troublemaker. I’m so excited to be your guest host for this month of Womanica!
This month we’re highlighting Prodigies: women who achieved greatness at a young age.
In 1909, more than 20,000 garment workers took to the streets of New York to demand better working conditions in their factories. Today we’re talking about the woman who organized and empowered women from the working class to housewives. Let’s give it up for Clara Lemlich.
Clara was born in Gorodok, Ukraine in 1886. At the time, Jewish girls weren’t allowed to attend school. But Clara was determined to learn, even clandestinely. She would secretly borrow books from her neighbors, and began reading about Karl Marx and communism.
Meanwhile, anti-Semitism was spreading throughout Europe. Coupled with rising poverty, Clara’s family fled Ukraine when she was 17 and relocated to New York. Within two weeks of arriving, Clara was already working in a garment factory in the lower East Side. Her father had trouble finding work, and Clara often supported her family with her income alone.
The textile factories were doing big business – new machines made it possible to make clothes faster, and cheaper. But that didn’t make conditions any easier for the workers. Most of the workers were young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, though the businesses were owned and managed by men.
Like the thousands of other workers in the textile and garment industry, Clara worked in what she described as unbearable conditions. At her factory, they worked 11 hours a day, 6 days a week, with only one bathroom break. For all of that, wages started at only three dollars a week. And a lot was expected of them. Arriving late to work, or making a mistake meant they were charged fines.
At age 17, Clara wrote that the workers were reduced to the “status of machines,” and were unable to enjoy life in this new country that they fought so hard to come to.
She had very little free time. But, Clara continued her self-directed education, reading books from the public library and attending night classes. The more she learned, the more she was convinced that she and her garment worker colleagues needed to organize. The problem was: at the time, unions weren’t interested in organizing the garment workers. Unlike other union jobs, these workers were women who typically only worked until they got married. But a handful of new unions were changing that.
In 1906, Clara joined the executive board of a local chapter of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Though this organization was new at the time, their campaigns were gaining momentum in organizing for workers rights. Clara led picket lines, spoke on street corners, wrote opinion articles, and organized meetings and strikes to improve factory conditions. Each time she was fired for her activism she would get a new job and continue agitating for workers’ rights.
Often, Clara and other workers were physically assaulted by the police and hired hands paid by factory owners to scare the women into stopping their organizing. Once while Clara was picketing, the police broke six of her ribs.
On November 22, 1909, garment workers gathered at the Cooper Union in New York.. After listening to hour after hour of men speaking about the problems, Clara grew frustrated with the lack of any solutions. So finally, Clara walked to the podium. She spoke in Yiddish, the most popular language spoken by Jewish immigrants, and encouraged everyone in the crowd to strike. The following day the garment industry did just that. Within a few days, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 young women refused to work. At the time, it was the largest organized strike in United States history, and it lasted for more than two months. It became known as the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand. Word spread and soon more workers were striking across the country.
The strikes drew public attention, which pressured some factory owners to make a change for the better. But, in February 1910, after months of striking, many couldn’t afford to keep going without getting paid. Sadly, the efforts didn’t end in the widespread reform Clara and her fellow workers wanted.
Most strikers returned to the factories without any change in their working conditions. Clara, however, had been blacklisted from the industry. So, she began doing paid work as an organizer.
Just a year later, in March 1911, a disastrous fire ripped through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York. The company had neglected safety precautions – doors were locked by managers, and there was just one faulty fire escape. In total, 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, died.
In 1913, Lemlich married Joe Shavelson, a printer's union activist, and had three children. They moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn and there, she organized housewives and mothers. They boycotted grocery stores that had inflated prices during World War I, protested landlords who increased rent and fought for better access to schools.
During the 1940’s she became an organizer for the American League against War and Fascism. In 1951 she had to testify in Congress for the House Un-American Activities Committee because of her relationship and earlier involvement to the Communist Party and her anti-war beliefs. Her family remained under government surveillance for the following two decades.
By her 80s, Clara was living in a nursing home in California. But, she never stopped organizing. She worked with the staff, helping them to unionize. And she instituted a boycott in support of the United Farm Workers. Clara died in 1982 at the age of 96.
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Special thanks to creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan for inviting me to guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!