In the midst of Chicago’s 1909-1910 rebellion of garment workers, leading Socialist activist Theresa Malkiel remembers her first strike fifteen years before.

‘Our First Strike’ by Theresa Malkiel from the Chicago Daily Socialist. Vol. 4 No. 87. February 5, 1910.

Back in the early nineties the trade of infant cloak making was one of the best paying industries for women. It had withstood all the onslaughts of the sweatshop, but we foresaw its coming surrender to the plague that is twice cursed–ruining those who make the clothes and those who wear them.

The result of our foresight and growing fear was the organization of union. Only seventy out of five thousand women employed then in the trade were brave enough to join the union ranks. But this did not dampen our courage and enthusiasm. With great dignity we proceeded to join every central labor body in the city, hoping to have their support in time of need.

Thus it happened that the birth of our organization became a topic of discussion in a number of daily newspapers. They had now for the first time mentioned the existence of an army of women who were spending their days and years in clothing the young. Our employers became greatly alarmed at this sudden prominence. The union was an unknown quantity to them and they were in dilemma whether to consider it seriously or treat it as a joke. The organization was brought into life on the eve of the busy season, and the employers decided to ascertain its strength at once. From every workroom came rumors that there was going to be a great reduction of prices on the new line of work. Only a working man or woman can understand what these rumors meant to us, for, in spite of the good wages, every cent earned went for the sheer necessaries of life.

The coming disaster became the main topic of discussion at our meeting. We made numerous motions, passed resolutions, instructed our delegates to report the matter to the central bodies, elected shop committees, the different scale of wages in the respective work rooms making it impossible to treat the trade as a whole. At last, unable to think of anything else, we decided to await the inevitable.

In my own work room the actual skirmish started because of the reduction of ten cents on a garment for which forty was paid formerly. To the outsider it may mean only a slight decrease of wages; to us it meant the defeat or victory of the entire organization.

At last the long-dreaded day, when the new prices were to take effect, arrived. We had learned beforehand of the plan of action adopted by our employer, who did not know how many of the fifty girls employed in his establishment belonged to the union. On that memorable morning each girl entered the workroom with the intention to lose her job rather than submit to the expected reduction. They yelled, vowed and hoped to stick by each other. Ina alone remained silent and seemingly calm. It was the outer calm of a great sorrow–she was coming from the sick bed of a dying brother.

Ina was the best worker in the place, and because of her experience and long years of service to the firm she had the privilege of choosing her work. We were aware that the employer had picked her out for his target. Her immediate discharge, in case of refusal to accept the lower price, would be the best warning for the rest of the girls. On the other hand, he knew that she was the sole support of a large and sickly family, could not afford to lose a single day’s work, and would not likely dare to oppose his decision.

The forelady handed her a bundle of work, at the same time informing her that Mr. M.’s order was to make it for thirty cents a piece, or leave the work room altogether.

From deadly pale Ina’s face turned crimson, her eyes became bloodshot: the refusal to work meant more than an ordinary discharge she was sure to be blacklisted throughout the trade. She was now earning fairly good wages and supporting her family, but the human being within her rebelled against turning traitor to her co-workers. She knew that her submissive acceptance of this lot of work eventually would mean a general cut in the prices. After fifteen years of work for the firm, after exerting her strength and ability to reach perfection, she was being turned out because of her first refusal to do their bidding. Every fiber of her body revolted against this terrible injustice.

A dead silence had fallen over the workroom when Ina rose from her chair, ready to go out into the unknown. The pale and frightened girls were unable to decide upon a plan of action–all had families to support, but some of us had hearts and conscience as well; we could not remain while Ina was driven out. Slowly, by one, six of us rose, and, shaking the threads of slavery from our garments, declared upon war against our employer.

The next day every newspaper had something to say about us. They ridiculed us as “Seven Debses in Skirts,” who dared to declare a strike against a trade that counted over five thousand employees.

We were no exception. Every industrial strife brings forth numerous commentaries from those who know but little of the inner conditions in different work rooms, of the actual relation between employer and employees. To the outsiders most of the strike seem absurd and unnecessary—a mere tactless act of the overwrought workers. But those who have sat on the work bench, who have undergone all the humiliation and hardship that goes with it, know that the workers do not strike unless compelled to do so, that every strike has its legitimate, unavoidable cause.

This seeming farce was to us a grave tragedy, that had left a lifelong impression upon us. Our self-enforced idleness meant also the suffering of those dependent upon us. We were aware, while leaving the work bench, that we were jeopardizing the welfare of our families, but there was no alternative–we had to go. It was a case of upholding a fellow worker who had suffered through and for us, of saving the whole trade from approaching ruin.

We did not succeed in calling out the rest of the girls, but had gained, nevertheless, a stay of reduction for them. Mr. M. removed the fatal cost from the sample line, deciding to bide his time before resuming further drastic measures. The loss of seven best workers, the sulky attitude of those who remained, threw the work room into a turmoil, warning other firms to be more cautious in their actions.

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 Chicago Socialist, sometimes daily sometimes weekly, was published from 1902 until 1912 as the paper of the Chicago Socialist Party. The roots of the paper lie with Workers Call, published from 1899 as a Socialist Labor Party publication, becoming a voice of the Springfield Social Democratic Party after splitting with De Leon in July, 1901. It became the Chicago Socialist Party paper with the SDP’s adherence and changed its name to the Chicago Socialist in March, 1902. In 1906 it became a daily and published until 1912 by Local Cook County of the Socialist Party and was edited by A.M. Simons if the International Socialist Review. A cornucopia of historical information on the Chicago workers movements lies within its pages.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/chicago-daily-socialist/1910/100205-chicagodailysocialist-v04n087.pdf