An Eshet Chayil.
I like that she was still organizing in her 90's to ensure that the nurses and orderlies at the LA Jewish Home for the Aged were able to join a union.
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I am one of Clara's grandchildren. First, thank you for this piece, Clara deserves it and more. However, I want to point out one important point. Clara was never a Stalin loyalist. However, she was committed and remained committed for her entire life, to the ideals of communism. The ideals embodied by "From each according to their ability to each according to their need" This is an incredibly important point, as the telling of United States history has in large part ignored the communist and socialist base of so many of those who laid the ground work for the most progressive movements of the 20th century. Our political dialogue continues to be hampered by these omissions and by the remnants of McCarthyism. As an example, we remain the only industrialized first world country incapable of serious political discussion of universal health care. Clara was truly a revolutionary thinker and remained so for her entire life. May we be blessed and inspired by her memory.
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For example, the Communists who helped to organize movements of the Unemployed during the Great Depression and thus pushed FDR to the left (or what this right-wing nation considers to be the left).
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@Julia Velson Thank you for setting the record straight. She was also an ancestor to my Step-Mother who shared the same strong sprit as Clara and helped shape the woman I am today.
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@Keith and beyond CP members, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and many more leaders of the civil rights movement who studied and prepared at the Highlander School, where the tenets of socialism were a critical part of the curriculum.
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Clara Lemlich Shavelson is a "shero"; it is sad today that Unions have such negative connotations because they were so very needed then and still are now to combat the lack of caring about workers' needs and lives; which leads to workers being at risk for injury, disease, and exploitation; we see it today in our country and around the globe!
Thank you for bringing her to us all as an example of standing up for what is right and just. Much needed in today's insane world.
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Watch the beginning of the 1996 movie I'm Not Rappaport for a brilliant and imagining of 23 year old Clara Lemlich calling for a general strike at the 1909 garment workers meeting. You can find it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oudTpdCc2nQ
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@RS
Thanks!
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Thank you Zoe Greenberg and the editors of The Times for providing this overview of the life and influence of this fierce advocate for social reform, improvements in the conditions of working people, and social justice. Clara Lemlich is well known to those who have read about the garment workers strikes and the circumstances that both preceded and followed the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of March 25, 1911. Filmmaker Ric Burns also highlighted her contributions in his episode on the period from 1898 to 1918 in his “New York: A Documentary Film.” I love that Clara Lemlich kept her ideals and fighting spirit throughout her
long life and pressed for unionization and reforms once she had begun living in the Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles. We need her courage, determination, tenacity, and strength right now to fight for vital change and reform.
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What a brave, strong woman!! Many lessons can be learned & utilized from her today. Thank you for publishing Clara's story.
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Thanks so much for publicizing the great work of Clara Lemlich!
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Thank you, thank you for rescuing Clara Lemlich Shavelson from being dismissed as a “wisp of a girl”. Girls can do anything - they just don’t seem to get credit for it.
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