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Unions

Content type
Collection

Ruth Rothstein

Project
Women Who Dared

David Johnson interviewed Ruth Rothstein on March 3, 2003, in Chicago, Illinois for the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Rothstein discusses her upbringing in Brownsville, New York, her involvement in union organizing, the influence of her Jewish identity on her career, including the Jewish hospital movement, and her current work at Cook County Hospital.

Collage of Clara Lemlich on blue background

Slowing Down Fast Fashion: Lessons from Clara Lemlich

Clara Sorkin

Clara Lemlich, the female garment workers she led in striking, and the women who have come after her prove that strength truly comes in numbers and in unity.

Collage of Maud Nathan on floral orange background

Remembering Maud Nathan on Election Day 2022

Irene Y. Raich

Suffragist Maud Nathan could never have predicted the labor protections and voting rights we have now, and just like her, I can never give up on fighting for what is right.

Collage of Bessie Hillman on orange and yellow patterned background

Lessons on the Labor Movement from Bessie Hillman

Nora Auburn

No one figure serves as the champion of the early 20th-century union movement, but Bessie Abramowitz Hillman comes close.

Ray Harmel

Ray Harmel was a powerful force in the trade union movement in Apartheid South Africa, a committed Communist, an anti-Apartheid activist, and ultimately a member of the African National Congress.

Labor Activist Myra Wolfgang Organizes Detroit Woolworth’s Sit-down Strike

February 27, 1937
Led by Myra Wolfgang, organizers from the Waiters and Waitresses Union of Detroit walked into a Detroit Woolworth’s five and dime store, blew a whistle, and declared the beginning of an 8-day sit-down strike.

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

After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, labor rights activist Rose Schneiderman made a famous speech which provided the basis for investigating our communal and individual responsibilities for the well being of others in our midst.

Ethel Baskin Schwartz

From Depression-era protests to twenty-first century marches, Ethel Baskin Schwartz dedicated her life to organizing and fighting for unions and civil rights.

Myra Wolfgang

Hailed by local newspapers as “the battling belle of Detroit,” Myra Wolfgang went from staging sit-ins to becoming International Vice President of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.

Randi Weingarten

When she was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 2008, Randi Weingarten became the first openly gay leader of an American national labor union.

Justine Wise Polier gives passionate speech on justice at Christ Church.

October 14, 1952
"I saw the vast chasms between our rhetoric of freedom, equality and charity, and what we were doing to, or not doing for poor people, especially children.” - Justine Wise Polier

Death of social activist Sophie Gerson

March 20, 2006
Sophie Gerson was a legendary figure in the history of textile union organizing in the South.

Leslie Feinberg, 1949 - 2014

And in the reflection of the glass, finally, literally and metaphorically, I could see myself, and Leslie, at once. I think I started to understand what I could be in that moment, that I belonged to a proud tradition of Butch women. That there was a place for me in this world. That I could grow up. For the first time, I understood that I was looking at who and what I would become as an adult. It was breathtaking.

Meredith Tax

Meredith Tax used her writing both to highlight the tremendous upheaval of her own times and to reimagine the struggles of suffragists and union organizers.

Ruth Rothstein

As chief of Cook County Bureau of Health Services, Ruth Rothstein helped Chicago hospitals create a better safety net for the disadvantaged.

Rose Finkelstein marries in true union style

December 25, 1921

Union organizer Rose Finkelstein Norwood said, "When I saw a detective coming, I’d hide in the coats."

Meredith Tax

It was too good a story to leave in a history book.

Collective Action: Lessons from the Labor Movement

What is the meaning of work? What conditions cause workers to suffer and what inspires them to take action to improve their lives? What can Jewish history teach us about contemporary labor issues and our responsibility towards workers around the world? Watch interactive activities and see an experienced facilitator model investigations of several historical artifacts you can put to use in your classroom.
Freelancers Union Logo

Building a new social safety net: Sara Horowitz and the Freelancers Union

Judith Rosenbaum

In 1909, Jewish women revolutionized the American labor movement. Before the huge garment industry strike known as the “Uprising of the 20,000,” union leaders saw women workers as irrelevant to the labor movement because they did not fit into the model of the traditional male union member. But these garment workers, many of them young Jewish women, proved that women could, in fact, organize effectively and challenge working conditions, and in doing so, they expanded the definition of worker and union member.

"Don't Patronize Reds!" Advertisement by Anonymous

Dr. Judith Rosenbaum Talks Living the Legacy with Jewschool

Gabrielle Orcha

This fall, the Jewish Women’s Archive released its latest online curriculum in the Living the Legacy series, a Jewish social justice education project.

Marilyn Sneiderman Organizing with Labor circa 2008-2009

Understanding the Past, Imagining the Future

Marilyn Sneiderman

Images and scenes etched in the minds of generations of Jewish activists--immigrant workers marching, sitting in, and striking; tear gas filling the air as riot police attack, beat and arrest union protesters; and battles with gangsters to free unions of mob domination. Freedom rides across the South, rabbis and religious leaders arrested in protests, and a generation of Jews--rank and file workers, organizers, and emerging leaders--swept up and inspired by a movement to win economic, racial, and social justice.

Topics: Labor Rights, Unions
Chicago Teacher's Strike, September 2012

What's With All The Teacher Hate?

Sarah Seltzer

Sarah Seltzer, contributing writer to the The Sisterhood, shares her thoughts on education, class, gender, unions, and workers' rights.

"The Return from Toil," July 1913

Labor Day and Leisure

Judith Rosenbaum

Labor Day. In America, this holiday is more often associated with barbeques, sales, and the farewell to summer and white linen than with the contributions of workers. By design, it’s a less overtly political holiday than the workers’ holidays in Europe—the U.S. intentionally picked a day other than the International Workers’ Day of May 1st to avoid any whiff of radicalism.

Joyce D. Miller, 1928 - 2012

In addition to being a great friend to many and a loving mother, daughter, and sister, she was a <em>Tzaddik.</em></p>

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