| Historical links |
Sweatshop links |
 |
| The play was performed March 17-19, 2000 at the Los
Angeles Theater Center. Three sold-out performances celebrated
the proud tradition of Jews in the labor movement and helped link our
present to our past. |
| "Bread & Roses" explores
the involvement of Jews in the U.S. labor movement, highlighting the
garment industry and the disastrous 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist
factory in New York City. The fire killed 146 women and led
to important labor reforms. The play also examines contemporary
Jewish attitudes towards the labor movement. |
| THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE |
| One hundred and forty six women died
in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911. 500
women, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, some as young as ten
years old, were working in the sweatshop that Saturday. The doors
leading from the shop areas had been locked, presumably to keep the
women at their sewing machines. The owners of the company
were charged with manslaughter, but acquitted. |
| A commission gathered testimony,
and New York City established the Bureau of Fire Investigation which
gave the fire department additional powers to improve factory safety.
The fire changed the regulation by government of business,
prompting a host of new laws to protect workers -- first in New York,
then in other states, and at the federal level. |
| The event also crystallized support
for efforts, particularly by the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union (ILGWU), to organize garment workers. It remains one of the
most vivid symbols for the American labor movement of the need for
government to ensure a safe workplace. |
| Even before the fire, the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory, a maker of women's clothing, had been a target
of union organizers. The first major strike by working women
took place among the shirtwaist makers of New York and Philadelphia
on November 22, 1909, and continued until February 15, 1910. |
| Called the Uprising of the 20,000,
the strike began when women and girls in their teens left their cramped
and filthy work rooms, and marched to Union Square to protest their
poor working conditions at a meeting called by the ILGWU. Although
the intent of the meeting was not to call a strike, remarks made by
teenager Clara Lemlich stirred up members of the group and motivated
them to walk out. |
| She interrupted the speeches of Samuel
Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and
Margaret Dreier Robins of the New York Women's Trade Union League
(WTUL) -- an organization that joined women factory workers with women
from the upper and middle classes -- to yell: "I am tired of
listening to speakers who talk in general terms. What we are here
for is to decide whether or not we shall strike. I offer a resolution
that a general strike be declared now!" The following day, the
women walked out. |
Clara Lemlich Shavelson (1886-1982)
is a major character in Sholem's "Bread & Roses" as
is Rose Schneiderman (1882-1972), a Polish immigrant who helped
organize the first female local of the Jewish Socialist United Cloth
Hat and Cap Makers Union. Schneiderman played a crucial role in the
garment workers' strike of 1909-10. She was an active suffragette
and president of Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) from 1926 to '49. |
| Resources for the Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory, women and labor unions |
A comprehensive site maintained by
the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at
Cornell University in cooperation with the Union of Needletrades,
Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!). The site contains
source material, pictures, and survivor interviews and additional
links.
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ |
Another comprehensive site with first-hand
accounts and testimony of witnesses at the commission that investigated
the tragedy.
http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Academic/history/Hi113net/TriangleTofC |
A United Press account of the fire...
http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/fire.html |
A good history of the union struggles
leading up to the fire, and the aftermath
http://www.gale.com/txtonly/markets/library/resrcs/womenhst/triangle.htm |
"The Spirit of the Strikers"
-- A contemporary account of the strike of 1910
http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Academic/history/Hi113net/spiritofthestrikers |
"The I'm Not Rappaport,"
written and directed by Herb Gardner film begins with a scene from
the 1909 ILGWU meeting addressed by the fiery Clara Lemlich (Elina
Löwensohn)
http://amspec.org/movies/rappaport.html |
The 1912 Lawrence Strike: How Did
Immigrant Workers Struggle to Achieve an American Standard of Living?
-- including links to speeches, posters and pictures of Rose Schneiderman
http://www.binghamton.edu/~womhist/law/doclist.htm |
A history of women in the workplace
and labor unions
http://www.thehistorynet.com/WomensHistory/articles/19967_text.htm |
Annotated Bibliography and Guide
to Archival Resources on the History of Jewish Women in America
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/jewwom/jw5.htm |
| Sweatshops and organizing |
|
"Hidden Labor; Uncovering L.A.'s
Garment Industry" -- The Common Threads Artist Group traces the
history of the the L.A. garment industry
www.usc.edu/Library/Ref/LA/PubArt/Downtown/HiddenLabor |
"Between A Rock and a Hard Place."
The Smithsonian Institute's history of American sweatshop
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/ve/sweatshops/start.htm |
California Students Against Sweatshops
http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/swatch/calsas/ |
Union of Needletrades, Industrial
and Textile Employees
http://www.uniteunion.org/ |
Los Angeles Jewish Commission on
Sweatshops issues report on L.A. garment industry, January 1999
http://www.isber.ucsb.edu/CommReport.html |
A global campaign to end sweatshops
-- with a comprehensive list of sources
http://www.sweatshops.org/ |
The clothes tree: Do you know where
your clothes have been? Follow the flow of production to see how contracting
works in the garment industry
http://www.soc.duke.edu/courses/soc142/tree.html |
Sweatshop Watch -- a coalition
of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant rights, women's and religious
organizations, and individuals committed to eliminating sweatshop
conditions in the garment industry with a comprehensive list of links
to related organizations.
http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/ |
Don't Sweat It: Jewish students fight
to end sweatshops
http://www.newvoices.org/newvoices/sweatshop.html |
