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?

Background: In this excerpt, Jewish factory owner Louis Borgenicht describes the effects of unionization on his business and personal life. According to his memoir, he was one of the first and few factory owners in the girls’ clothing industry to willingly let his workers unionize.

My working conditions were always up to the best in the industry. Nevertheless, once the union was admitted—and cheerfully—I found a new spirit undermining the old sense of co–operation. Hard feelings for me were encouraged as a deliberate policy. If a cutter did a good day’s work—as some bewildered old–fashioned workers reported—new employees approached him with warnings that he was setting too high a standard of work for the rest.

The first time I heard myself depicted as an enemy of the workers I laughed. I was a worker myself, and always had been. But it was no laughing matter I soon learned.

When a check-up revealed that, paying the same wages and working the same hours as previously, we had fallen far off our production schedule since signing up with the union—in some departments we were getting only sixty per cent of the quota of work—it was time to call a halt…“Either get the other manufacturers to sign up,” I insisted to the union leaders, “so that our labor costs are equalized, or I will have to dispense with the union myself!”

Source: Friedman, Harold. The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht As Told to Harold Friedman. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1942. pp. 309–310

1. How did Louis Borgenicht treat his employees? Why do you think he felt this way?
2. According to his memoir, how did the union change the work ethic of Louis Borgenicht's employees?
3. What were the factors Louis Borgenicht needed to consider when deciding whether or not to allow the union to organize in his shop? Which do you think were most important to him?

Background: Louis Borgenicht kicked the union out of his shop because he felt the union made him less able to compete with other manufacturers. He gave his employees the choice to stay—non–unionized but at the same wages and hours—or leave and find other work. In this excerpt, he describes a strike that was called in his factory as a result of this decision.

Within twenty–four hours a picket line was thrown around the plant. As if to lend spice to it, it was led, actually, by a young cousin of mine whom I had brought over from Europe at his own piteous request. I had reared this boy in my own home and, when he asked for a job, I had placed him in my own office. It was hardly a pleasant feeling to have to pass him every morning, and to listen impotently to his denunciations of me as a swine and an oppressor.

After the first few days “gorillas” visited the homes of the people who were still at work. [In order to keep our employees safe, we resorted] to keeping our employees in nearby hotels, or in the plant itself … no more than a makeshift [plan]. For six weeks I held out, always with the condition that I would sign up again if the other manufacturers did. The union was not concerned with the others. Threats to life came with increasing frequency; our business was reduced to running on one wheel. We gave in.

Again there was no change in wages or conditions. It was purely a matter of union recognition. All the strikers came back, even that fine lad from abroad.

gorillas: In this case, gorillas were people who supported the union who harassed workers who did not support the strike. People who worked even when there was a strike in a shop were called “scabs.”

Source: Friedman, Harold. The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht As Told to Harold Friedman. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1942. p. 310

1. What factors contributed to Louis Borgenicht’s decision to give in to the union?
2. At the end of the excerpt, Louis Borgenicht states: “Again there was no change in wages or conditions. It was purely a matter of union recognition. All the strikers came back, even that fine lad from abroad.” What does he mean by this? Do you think the workers felt like they had “won” or reached their goals? Why or why not?

Background: Just two days into the “Uprising of the 20,000,” many small factories agreed to union demands. About 70 large factories, however, refused to accept the union or make changes to their rules for workers. The following is a modified excerpt from a secondary source describing how these larger factory owners responded.

Rather than go it alone or attempt to negotiate with the union, the owners of the Triangle, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, circulated a letter in early November to all shirtwaist manufacturers suggesting the formation of an Employers Mutual Protective Association “in order to prevent this irresponsible union in gain[ing] the upper hand…[and] dictating to us the manner of conducting our business.” […]

Following Triangle’s call, the new Association of Waist and Dress Manufacturers … met…The organization further called for all manufacturers who had already signed contracts [with unions] to openly break them and lockout their workers. […]

Larger shops, such as the Triangle, were able to fight the union effectively by:

• Moving production to factories outside of New York
• Subcontracting work to smaller shops that had already settled with the union
• Having enough resources to wait out the strikers [who desperately needed their jobs and wages back]

lockout: When factory owners would literally lock the doors of a factory and not allow workers to come to work.

subcontract: When a large company pays a smaller company or an individual to do work that is part of a larger project.

Source: Greenwald, Richard A. The Triangle Fire, the Protocols of Peace, and Industrial Democracy in Progressive Era New York. pp. 33–34. Some language has been modified from the original version to be more accessible to lower–level readers.

1. How did the factory owners respond to the striking workers?
2. What did the factory owners mean when they said they were forming an association “to prevent this irresponsible union [from] dictating to us the manner of conducting our business?”
3. How do you think the factory owners felt about the workers who were organizing the strikes in their factories?
4. Do you think the factory owners’ responses were effective? Why or why not?