Background: At age 11, Pauline Newman (a recent immigrant from Lithuania) got a job working in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a year–round position that ensured she would have work and income to help support her family. Here, Pauline discusses the working conditions at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co.

As I said before, the job was not strenuous. It was tedious. Since our day began early we were often hungry for sleep. …There were … deductions from our meager wages if and when you were five minutes late—so often due to transportation delays; there was the constant watching you, lest you pause for a moment from your work; (rubber heels had just come into use and you rarely heard the foreman or the employer sneak up behind you, watching.)

You were watched when you went to the lavatory and if in the opinion of the forelady you stayed a minute or two longer than she thought you should have you were threatened with being fired; there was the searching of your purse or any package you happen to have lest you may have taken a bit of lace or thread …

Despite these inhuman working conditions the workers—including myself—continued to work for this firm. What good would it do to change jobs since similar conditions existed in all garment factories of that era? There were other reasons why we did not change jobs—call them psychological, if you will. One gets used to a place even if it is only a work shop. One gets to know the people you work with. You are no longer a stranger and alone. You have a feeling of belonging which helps to make life in a factory a bit easier to endure. Very often friendships are formed and a common understanding established. These, among other factors made us stay put, as it were …

tedious: Too long, slow, or dull. Boring and usually repetitive.

lavatory: bathroom

Source: Pauline Newman, Pauline Newman papers, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe. Box 1, folder 3, pp. 14–17, 20–21.

Background: On November 22, 1909, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union gathered at Cooper Union to discuss going on a strike. Many prominent leaders spoke to offer their support, but also cautioned the working union members that a strike might be too risky or too dangerous.

… In the midst of all the admirable speeches a girl worker—Clara Lemlich by name, got up and shouted “Mr. Chairman, we are tired of listening to speeches. I move that we go on strike now!” and other workers got up and said “We are starving while we work, we may as well starve while we strike.” Pendimonium [sic] broke lose [sic] in the hall. Shouts, cheering, applause, confusion and shouting of “strike, strike” was heard not only in the hall but outside as well.

… During the weeks and months of the strike most of them would go hungry. Many of them would find themselves without a roof above their heads. All of them would be cold and lonely. But all of them also knew and understood that their own courage would warm them; that hope for a better life would feed them; that fortitude would shelter them; that their fight for a better life would lift their spirit.

pandemonium: Wild or noisy disorder, confusion, or uproar.

[sic]: When an author spells a word wrong in a primary source, the text is left as it was in the original document and historians or editors use [sic] to note that it was spelled incorrectly in the original.

Source: Pauline Newman, Pauline Newman papers, Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe. Box 1, folder 3, pp. 17, 23–24.

1. What were the conditions that caused some workers to organize?
2. Why did some workers not want to join unions?
3. What are the opportunities and risks of going on strike?
4. When you learned about Clara Lemlich’s speech in the game, how did you feel? How do you think the workers at Cooper Union felt when they heard Clara Lemlich speak up?