LaborArts


Photograph

Item no. 30178
circa 1910
New York
Occupation: Manufacturing: garment
Collection: Cornell University Kheel Center

Rally with signs in Yiddish, Italian and English, circa 1910.

In 1900, 40,000 New York City garment workers produced 37 percent of the nation's ready-to-wear clothing, mostly in small shops. For much for the century the garment industry provided jobs for immigrants -- first Eastern European Jews and Italians, many of whom arrived with tailoring skills, and later to the more recent waves of Asian and Hispanic workers. It is no wonder the ILGWU was founded here.

See this image in The ILGWU: Social Unionism in Action

Item image not found

View other items in the thematic set Pre-1920s