YIVO Receives $350,000 Grant to Digitize Four Collections Focused on Jewish Immigrant Involvement in the Labor Movement in the United States

(New York, NY) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for $349,524 to process and digitize four collections focused on the Jewish immigrant involvement in the labor movement in the United States including: the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Collection, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Collection, the Jewish Labor Committee Collection, and the United Hebrew Trades Collection.

All early players in American labor, these organizations, founded by a mainly Jewish immigrant base, grew to become some of the largest and most influential labor unions in the United States. The membership and leadership of these organizations were infused with the ideas and ideals of members of the Jewish Labor Bund who immigrated to America after the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, changing and molding the American labor movement. Beyond simply functioning as labor bodies, these organizations provided educational opportunities and English language and citizenship classes, thus playing an Americanizing and educational influence among Jewish immigrant workers.

The four collections include:

1) International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Collection, 1894-1970s

Founded in 1900 by members of seven local unions in New York City representing mainly newly arrived Jewish and Italian immigrants, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union grew to become one of the largest labor unions in the United States.

The materials in the ILGWU Collection are primarily in Yiddish and English and include some of the following: governing documents, and constitutions from 1894-1900 documenting the creation of the ILGWU; records relating to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 including photographs, clippings, and speeches of ILGWU members inspired by this event; memoir materials of union members and activists; materials related to strikes in which the ILGWU led or participated in; meeting minutes, membership lists, leaflets, flyers, and photographs of various ILGWU locals throughout the United States; materials documenting the work of the ILGWU Education Department, Training Institute, and Health and Welfare Department; materials relating to ILGWU President David Dubinsky and the work of the ILGWU to expand its representation in the 1960s.

2) Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Collection, 1914-1984

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was founded in 1914 in an act of revolt against the dominant union of men’s clothing workers, the United Garment Workers, whose leadership had become increasingly disconnected both socially and economically from the majority of its membership base, many of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrants.

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Collection, primarily in English and Yiddish, includes pamphlets, leaflets, clippings, correspondence, minutes, constitutions, agreements, contracts, photos, financial records, and reports relating to the ACWA. Materials relate to the ACWA’s founding; work related to collective bargaining; and its connections and agreements with other unions and the AFL; and materials related to its social aid programs.

3) United Hebrew Trades Collection, 1900-1965

The United Hebrew Trades (UHT) was a federation of Jewish labor unions organized in New York in 1888 under the leadership of Yiddish journalist Jacob Magidoff, founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America Morris Hillquit, and founder and long-time editor of the Jewish Daily Forward Abraham Cahan. Established during a time when other smaller Jewish trade unions were struggling to survive, the United Hebrew Trades adopted aset of principles that promoted mutual support between all unions; helped establish unions in trades that had not yet organized; and spread Socialist ideology among Jewish workers. The UHT became instrumental in helping organize other unions, teaching workers how to hold meetings, arrange contracts with owners, keep proper financial records, and organize and lead strikes.

The United Hebrew Trades Collection includes early correspondence of founding members as well as later correspondence of leadership and officers; board and meeting minutes; papers relating to various unions, including milk drivers, syrup workers, meat cutters, matzah bakers, and delicatessen counterworks; pamphlets related to various strikes; speeches and lectures from leadership and members; and materials related to the UHT’s involvement with anti-Nazi boycotts and work with refugees.

4) Jewish Labor Committee Collection, 1930s-1960s

The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) was founded in 1934 by leaders of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the United Hebrew Trades, and other related Jewish groups. Its formation was in response to the rise of Nazism and a desire to provide a presence for Jewish labor in the councils of the American trade-union movement’s struggle against fascism. In addition to educating the American labor movement about the threat of Nazism, the aims of the JLC were to support Jewish civil and human rights; to back anti-fascist groups; and to aid refugees.

Of particular interest from the collection, which is primarily in English with some Yiddish, are the materials which document the role of the Jewish Labor committee in anti-Nazi activities including the anti-Nazi boycotts of 1934-1939; the records of the JLC’s refugee rescue efforts and orphan aid program including case histories, correspondence, and fundraising campaigns; and transcripts of the JLC’s radio programs from the 1940s.

These four collections are part of a new eight-year project to conserve, process, and digitize YIVO’s Jewish Labor and Political Archive (JLPA), which documents Jewish political, labor, and social movements in the United States and Europe from 1870 to 1992. The project will make these materials available online free-of-charge. This is the largest archival digitization project in YIVO’s history consisting of approximately 3.5 million pages.

The JLPA at YIVO is the most comprehensive resource on Jewish revolutionary, socialist, and labor movements in Europe and America. Many of the materials were originally collected by the Bund Archives which was founded in 1899 in Geneva, Switzerland, to gather the organizational records and revolutionary literature published in the underground printing shops of Eastern European and Russian revolutionary parties including the then-nascent Jewish Labor Bund.

The result of an impoverished Jewish working class in the Russian empire and the spread of secular ideas, the Bund was founded in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in October 1897. It functioned as a kind of labor union and political party whose membership consisted of Jewish workers, intellectuals, and youth who fought against the oppressive forces of the Tsarist regime, the capitalist order, and the hierarchical Jewish community.

These materials illustrate how the transnational activities of the Jewish working class were instrumental in the international labor movement. The Jews who immigrated to the United States during the period of mass immigration brought their political ideologies, social consciousness, and demand for labor reform to the new and fertile ground of the American working class. These Jewish immigrants joined other ethnic groups including Italian immigrants in the fight for fair wages and workers' rights. The JLPA reveals the impact of an important aspect of the Jewish immigrant community on American politics and social life and deepen our understanding of the American Jewish experience.

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Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story