Honor Judith Rosenbaum's leadership on her 10th anniversary as JWA’s CEO by making a donation!
Close [x]

Show [+]

"We Have Found You Wanting:" Labor Activism and Communal Responsibility

A Jewish immigrant activist and a lifelong advocate for the rights of workers and of women, Rose Schneiderman shaped the American labor movement. Known as a powerful orator, Schneiderman used her speeches—such as the one she delivered in April, 1911 to protest the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—to galvanize leaders and ordinary citizens to action on behalf of workers, immigrants, and other disadvantaged members of society. This Go & Learn guide uses Schneiderman's speech and life example to explore our communal and individual responsibilities for the well being of others in our midst.

Rose Schneiderman speaking at a union rally, circa 1910s. 
Courtesy of Brown Brothers

Overview

Enduring Understandings

  • Rose Schneiderman is an important figure who shaped the American labor movement.
  • The activist response to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, of which Rose Schneiderman was a key part, ultimately led to the creation of more effective fire and safety regulations in the workplace.

Essential Questions

  • What impacts did Rose Schneiderman have on the American labor movement?
  • What can we learn from Rose Schneiderman about the importance of communal and individual responsibility for the well-being of others in our midst?
Introductory essay(s)

Introduction: Rose Schneiderman and Labor Activism

Rose Schneiderman was a tiny person whose enormous passion and organizing talents changed the lives of American workers. Though only four feet nine inches tall, she could command the attention of a crowd with her powerful speaking skills whether she was standing on a street corner or a soapbox, at a lectern or a radio microphone. A fiery activist—she famously said "I was not a redhead for nothing"—she championed the rights of workers and of women throughout her life.

Rose Schneiderman was born in Poland on April 16, 1882. Her parents, Samuel and Deborah, believed strongly in education for girls (unlike many of their contemporaries) and sent Rose first to heder [religious school] and then to public school. In 1890, the family immigrated to New York City. When Samuel died two years later, Deborah did everything she could to support her children, but she was forced to place them in an orphanage temporarily. When Rose returned from the orphanage, her mother worked nights so she could attend school during the days. But when Deborah lost her job, thirteen-year-old Rose had to leave school and find work.

For three years, Schneiderman worked as a salesgirl. But department store work, while considered more respectable than factory work, was badly paid, and Schneiderman eventually became a cap maker instead. Although she earned more than as a salesgirl, wages were still low and working conditions poor, and Schneiderman soon became interested in the labor movement. Convinced that unions could improve the lot of the working class, she organized her workplace into a branch of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' Union. At first skeptical that a woman could organize other workers, male union leaders were impressed by Schneiderman. She soon became the first woman elected to national office in an American labor movement.

Prior to 1900, few women belonged to unions, because male union leaders believed that women would get married, leave the workforce, and never be reliable union members. Yet women workers, too, endured long hours, low wages, and poor conditions, and they often experienced sexual harassment as well. The place of women in the labor movement was transformed by garment workers—the majority of whom were Jewish—and their 1909-1910 strike, the "Uprising of the 20,000." It remains the largest strike by women to date in the United States.

Rose Schneiderman helped pave the way for the "Uprising of the 20,000." While leading a cap makers' strike, she became involved with the New York Women's Trade Union League (NYWTUL), founded by middle-class women to help working women unionize. By 1906, she had become vice president of the NYWTUL, and in 1908 she began working as the League's chief organizer, focusing on New York City's garment workshops and the shirtwaist workers who would take to the streets the following year.

Schneiderman was also an influential figure in the activism following the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City. Although the (Jewish) owners of the company had been cited several times for violation of the city's fire safety code, they had simply paid the fines and continued operating. On the day of the fire, about 500 workers were present. Most of the escape exists were locked, in order to prevent theft and walkouts and to keep out union organizers. Firefighters did not have tall enough ladders to reach the fire, and blankets and nets held by bystanders collapsed under the weight of the many workers who jumped. Others simply burned to death inside the factory. Of the 146 victims, most were Jewish immigrant women between the ages of 16 and 23.

The scale of the tragedy provoked widespread grief and outrage. In the featured document—a speech given by Rose Schneiderman at a meeting protesting the fire—she expresses her anger that the lives of working people are not valued more and holds citizens accountable for the poor conditions of workers' lives. Responses to the fire such as Schneiderman's speech ultimately spurred the creation of more effective fire and safety regulations for the workplace.

Schneiderman's skills brought her to a statewide and then national stage. In the years before women got the right to vote, Schneiderman played a key role in the New York State suffrage campaign. In 1920, she ran for the US Senate on the Labor Party ticket. Though she did not win, her campaign brought attention to the needs of working people. She became a nationally-known figure and was both a personal friend of and political influence on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, serving as the only woman on the National Labor Advisory Board and helping to shape much of New Deal legislation. In 1937, she took the post of Secretary of Labor for New York State.

Schneiderman always remained connected to her Jewish roots. Involved in Jewish causes all her life, she was particularly active during the late 1930s and 1940s in the efforts to rescue Jewish refugees from Europe and resettle them in the US and in Palestine.

Rose Schneiderman died on August 11, 1972, at age ninety. She left a lasting legacy of legislation that protects workers and clearly articulated ideals – such as comparable worth laws and government funded child care – yet to be achieved.

Lesson Plans by Age Group
Document studies

Rose Schneiderman's Speech

Open this section in a new tab to print

Rose Schneiderman's April 2, 1911 Speech

I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today; the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire.

This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.

We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.

Public officials have only words of warning to us—warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

Speech by Rose Schneiderman at Metropolitan Opera House meeting to protest the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire April 2, 1911. From: Leon Stein, ed., Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy (New York: Quadrangle/New Times Book Company, 1977), pp. 196-197. First published in The Survey, April 8, 1911.

0 Comments

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. ""We Have Found You Wanting:" Labor Activism and Communal Responsibility." (Viewed on October 7, 2024) <https://jwa.org/teach/golearn/sep08>.