In November 1909, 23-year-old labor activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson led a strike of 20,000 women to protest the working conditions in New York City’s garment industry. Male union leaders had cautioned against the strike, but in February 2010 the “Uprising of the 20,000” got factory owners to agree to a 52-hour work week and recognition of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), which subsequently achieved better safety regulations and higher wages. One holdout was the Triangle Waist Company, where just a year later, in 1911, a fire killed 146 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. Read more about the Triangle Waist Company fire and immigration in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS). Learn more about this labor pioneer in BEHIND THE STORY.
