‘My Sisters in Toil’ by Theresa Malkiel from The Socialist Woman. Vol. 2. No. 14. July, 1908

Listen my sisters! I have made up my mind to talk it over with you. I have toiled from morn to night, from week to week, from year to year, without any bright memories of the past or dreams for the, future. Like you, I have lived to work. Each day brought forth the same dull program; the only variation being the time when work was slack, and then the fear of the morrow made matters still worse. We girls of the same workroom often rebelled against our nerve and body tearing tasks, often wished for a glimpse of the clear sky and the bright sunshine, the green fields and shady woods, which very few of us ever got a chance to enjoy. But what was the use of complaining? We saw no remedy for it, and what was more, didn’t care to look for one.

It is true there was the possibility of marriage, but how many of us look forth to married life as a relief from hard burdens, as easier living. What with the housework and small babies, that come soon enough, a few boarders or some homework, or the job of a janitress, there is little time for recreation, or thought for better things.

Toilers live the life of animals—that is work, and sleep, with short intervals for food. Now let us put our heads together and see if this is right; if things ought to, and will, go on forever in this way.
I know you will say: “What is the use? We’ll not change the world, it’s our fate to work and struggle, and we might as well accept the inevitable. We are too tired to think, or read what others have thought out for us; when bones ache and the head reels, the bed, even if it is a hard one, is more inviting than the most attractive lecture room.”

But, sisters, let me tell you that this is only an illusion.

Just as the philosopher or scientist must once in a while occupy himself with manual labor, so it is necessary for working girls to have some brain work to relieve their physical fatigue. If we come home with no other thought but the grind that awaits us again tomorrow, the best thing for us to do is to find forgetfulness in sleep.

It is entirely different, however, if you become absorbed in something which turns your mind into a different channel of thought, which makes your blood run faster in your veins, and makes life worth living. Try it, girls, I am talking from experience. Things will not go on forever as they do now, we will not always live to work. Some day we will work to live; there is a beautiful world ahead of us, a world with plenty for all. It is in your, in mine, in everybody’s power to bring it about, but we must all utilize our power, we must all put our shoulders to the wheel. We all realize that things are not what they ought to be; therefore, the very next thing to do, is to find a way to make wrong right; this requires careful thought and study. There are millions of men and women who give up what is best in them for that very purpose. Girls, why not join hands with them? Every atom of their breath is devoted to the cause of the working class. They, too, work for a living and are tired when night comes; but within them burns a holy fire which gives them the strength and energy to go forth and proclaim the message of truth, to sound the trumpet announcing the coming of freedom, and, take it from me, sister workers, it is glorious to be one of them. The daily grind becomes only an incident in your life, there opens a far broader field to absorb your entire being; with millions of comrades, ready to welcome you in any part of the world you cannot help feeling that you are higher than the mere tool, or hand that you are supposed to be, from the boss’s point of view; instead of looking up to him, and often forgiving him his liberties with you, you learn to look down at him, and pity him for his ignorance and shortsightedness.

Again and again we will hear a despondent voice exclaiming: “What is the use? Life is too dull and empty! it is hardly worth living.” And yet there is so much to live for, there is so much to be accomplished in this wide, wide world, and neither father, brother, husband or sweetheart can do our part for us. She who wants to be free must herself strike the blow; and strike we will, my sisters. Not with swords and hatchets, as man was wont to do, but through our intelligence and energy, through our efforts to rise above the spirit of greed and exploitation.

Come, my sisters, let us shake off our fetters; let us rise and assert our rights. It is time! The bugle call sounds louder and louder; my toiling sisters of the world, arise!

Theresa Malkiel (1874-1949) Theresa Serber was an American born in Ukraine into a large Jewish family. In 1891 the Serber family emigrated to New York City’s Lower East Side where a teenage Theresa found work, like so many Jewish women of her generation, in a garment factory. Still a teen, she joined the Russian Workingmen’s Club and in n 1892 she began her organizer’s life helping to found the Infant Cloakmaker’s Union of New York, becoming its first president. In 1893 she joined the Socialist Labor Party and representing her union in the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. In 1899, Theresa joined the ‘Kangaroos’ opposed to Daniel De Leon’s leadership and became a founding member of Socialist Party of America, and the first working class women to rise to leadership of the Party. In 1905, Malkiel organized the Women’s Progressive Society of Yonkers, a branch of the Socialist Women’s Society of New York. The ‘separatism’ of the Society was opposed by the male leadership. Malkiel was one of the best-known women Socialist writers of the ‘Debsian era’ with articles in many union, labor, feminist and socialist publications. Malkiel was elected to the Woman’s National Committee of the Socialist party in 1909 and led the establishment of Woman’s Day, starting on February 28, 1909, which would inspire International Women’s Day. That year also saw the epic New York City shirtwaist strike in which she would play a leading role with the Women’s Trade Union League. In 1910, Malkiel’s most lasting work, The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, a fictionalized account of the shirtwaist strike was published and widely read. Malkiel also helped to raise the question of race in the Party, challenging the Socialist’s internal segregation and racism and writing a scathing report on the life of the Party after a 1911 speaking tour through the South. A leading Socialist campaigner for the vote, in 1914, she headed the Socialist Suffrage Campaign of New York and was on its National Executive Committee to travel across the country campaigning for suffrage. Malkiel stayed with the Part during the disastrous 1919 splits, and ran for State office in 1920. Her partner was leading Socialist solicitor Leon A. Malkiel. Although Theresa was able to move from a life of factory work, she remained committed to workers organizing and education, leading immigrant and adult classes for workers in Yonkers for the remaining decades of her life.

The Socialist Woman was a monthly magazine edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko from 1907 with this aim: “The Socialist Woman exists for the sole purpose of bringing women into touch with the Socialist idea. We intend to make this paper a forum for the discussion of problems that lie closest to women’s lives, from the Socialist standpoint”. In 1908, Conger-Kaneko and her husband Japanese socialist Kiichi Kaneko moved to Girard, Kansas home of Appeal to Reason, which would print Socialist Woman. In 1909 it was renamed The Progressive Woman, and The Coming Nation in 1913. Its contributors included Socialist Party activist Kate Richards O’Hare, Alice Stone Blackwell, Eugene V. Debs, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and others. A treat of the journal was the For Kiddies in Socialist Homes column by Elizabeth Vincent.The Progressive Woman lasted until 1916.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-woman/080700-socialistwoman-v2w14.pdf