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Fellow Travelers From Popular Front to Cold War

Selections from the Kheel Center Archive of the Yiddish Immigrant Left

Women's Work

Women's Department Newsletter by Clara Lemlich, May 1941

Immigrant Clara Lemlich had famously led the “Uprising of the 20,000” in 1909, the first female led garment workers strike that was associated with Triangle Fire organizing (see Triangle Fire archives). Lemlich was a critical member of the IWO and its Jewish Section along with her spouse Joe Shavelson.

June Gordon to Adam Rayski, 1947 (correspondence)

Another important figure is June Gordon, the head of the JPFO’s Emma Lazarus Division which legally spun off from the IWO in 1951 to become the Emma Lazarus Federation (ELF).

Rose Nelson Regarding IWO Women's Clubs Annual Meeting and Membership Drives

Gordon, Lemlich and Rose Nelson worked in the 1930s through 1940s with homemakers and other women on meat boycotts, rent strikes, unions and much else. They organized Jewish women who worked directly with Black women in Harlem and elsewhere and worked with IWO Vice President Louise Thompson Patterson who advocated for African American female workers employed as domestics, a topic that Thompson wrote about.

Subject headings include, among others: Membership campaign; the "Day" strike; May Day; Mother's Day; Camp Wo-Chi-Ca; upcoming scheduled events in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, and cultural work (the Bulletin, scrapbooks, reading circles). The Jewish Women's Section of the New York City Committee.
Dora Rich Records Meeting of IWO Jewish Women's Section of the New York City Committee, April 1941 (correspondence)
Translated Summary: Begins, "The nation's bankers and industrialists, who are dragging us closer to the abyss of war, have also decided that the people will bear the cost of war through higher taxes..." "The discontent of women who have to cover the increased cost of living can be heard in every market..." Announces campaign against larcenous pricing for staple goods. [Prior to Hitler invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the IWO opposed U.S. support of the Allies in World War II.]
IWO Women's City Committee to District Leaders Regarding Campaign Against Inflated Prices, May 1941 (correspondence)
Grey Folder containing National Secretary Louise Thompson's "Report on the English Section,” Fifth National Convention, IWO, June 8-14, 1940, Riverside Plaza Hotel. The Report, created for the National English Committee to the National Conference of English Lodges,stresses the importance of making English speaking lodges evolve to become the largest Section and to further recruit women and Black members. The Report follows Soviet Molotov-Ribentrop policy in denouncing "war mongers" since it is issued just prior to the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. It discusses whether Black people will benefit from a war: "They know that if there are job opportunities in the armament program they are denied to Negroes." (12) It critiques British rule of non-white peoples in India, the Caribbean and Africa, and passes anti-colonialism resolutions as well as discusses the need for more recruiting and organizing in the Black community. It notes: "The Negro membership reflected in the reports of the lodges is ... not a figure to shout about. Rather it is a reflection of the lack of country-wide attention to the job of winning large sections of the Negro people for our Order." (11) This text uses the term ‘Negro’ and/or 'Negro Labor' to refer to the concerted efforts made primarily in the 1920s-1940s to fight racial discrimination so as to ensure the fair employment of Black people, in union and other jobs including those in the private sector, civil service, as well as advocacy for the full integration of Black people into the armed services. Black unemployment and under employment were extremely high due to racial barriers. While the term ‘Negro’ might be read as pejorative today, the term was then used in a positive regard, including by Black leftists.
Louise Thompson "Report on the English Section,” Fifth National Convention, the International Workers Order, June 8-14, 1940
"Compiled by" Dora Rich; "for a talk." Content: "The fight for women's social and economic rights", "The working woman", "The woman at home", "Health conditions of working women and housewives", "Women in the battle for peace", "Women in the Soviet Union", "The I.W.O. and the women's clubs", "The accomplishments and tasks of our women's clubs", bibliography. Speeches. [Prior to Hitler invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the IWO opposed U.S. support of the Allies in World War II.]
Women's Role in Society and the Mission of the Women's Clubs
Translated Summary: Starting with this issue of "Haym un Dertsiung" [Haim Un Dertziung] we are establishing a special page for and about women. Women's accomplishments and problems will be highlighted. The goal is to acknowledge women as equal members in society and in the struggle (but also to elevate the readers' cultural level, and activate them). Discusses International Women's Day, lauds the equal legal status of women in the Soviet Union, and their contributions to the War effort there. The center box is a profile of Rose Benedick, a member the Hungarian section of the I.W.O. It describes her contributions to the War effort, including working at a bomb factory, driving other workers to and from the factory, teaching courses in first aid, in knitting, giving talks on Hungarian unity, and converting her home into a first aid station, in the event that Gary, Indiana, where she lives, is ever bombed.
Womens Page of Derziung [Home and Education]

The IWO women’s leadership strengthened across its sections even more strongly with the advent of World War II’s war-time economy. Helen Vrabel headed the Slovaks’ society for ten years. The Emma Lazarus Division was deeply involved in wartime work and postwar rehabilitation, most particularly orphanages (see Postwar). Louise Thompson Patterson ran the IWO’s English Section, served as its National Secretary, and organized in Harlem and Chicago, the Midwest, and in Alabama, and spearheaded its efforts on the Ingram and Scottsboro cases, as well as the creation of the IWO’s Douglass-Lincoln Section (see Black Leadership). Like most IWO leaders, these women supported keeping the U.S. out of World War II until the Nazi regime attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Corrected proof for Cabaret and Entertainment ticket, Washington's Birthday lodge evening. First Annual Anniversary.
Corrected proof for ad for Cabaret and Entertainment, Washington's Birthday evening

About 10,000 pages of documents from the Kheel Center’s collection of International Workers’ Order records have been digitized. You can find more of these documents here along with the full version of documents provided here.