Pauline Newman 1887to –1986
American labor union organizer and workers’ rights activist. Born in Lithuania, Newman had to fight for her early education. The public schools would not accept Jews, and the Jewish schools would not accept women, so she begged her way into her father’s classes, then proceeded to question his teachings on gender segregation. When her father died in 1901, she and her mother emigrated to New York City, and Newman—still a child—began working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Depressed by the terrible conditions there, she found solace in discovering socialism through a Yiddish newspaper. As a teenager, she organized an after-work leftist book club at the factory, a precursor of her career to come. When she was 20, Newman led a group of independent women to organize a rent strike in the tenements of the Lower East Side. 10,000 families refused to pay their rent on January 1, 1908, the largest rent strike the city had ever seen, which sparked decades of tenants’ rights activism. The following year, she organized a strike of 40,000 female garment workers. The attention earned her the title “east side Joan of Arc” from the New York Times, and a Socialist Party nomination for New York secretary of state, even though women did not yet have the right to vote. She was also appointed the first female general organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and worked with the Women’s Trade Union League. Her greatest fears were realized in 1911, when a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory killed 146 workers, including many of her friends. She joined the resulting commission to inspect factory conditions, and shifted her attention towards politics and legislation. By the 1920s, Newman found herself part of the circle of women, mostly lesbians, who surrounded Eleanor Roosevelt at her cottage Val-Kill. This gave her access to politicians, who frequently sought her advice. Also part of this circle was her partner, Frieda Miller. They had met in 1917 while Miller was a teacher in Philadelphia, and in 1923 they moved to Greenwich Village where they raised Miller’s daughter together. They remained a couple for over 50 years, until Miller’s death. During that time, Newman worked as educational director for the Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Health Center. She lived her final years with her adopted daughter, seeing the rebirth of feminism in the 1970s, and being rediscovered as an early feminist hero.