Clara Lemlich and the Uprising of the 20,000
Robinson Room, Miller Library, Colby College Mayflower Hill Drive, Waterville, MEIn 1909, Clara Lemlich, a young Jewish refugee from Russia to New York City, sparked the first great women’s strike in American history by speaking uninvited to several thousand teenaged foreign-born sweatshop workers to urge a revolt against intolerable conditions. Over the next three months, Lemlich faced beatings and arrests, but the “Uprising of 20,000” […]