Theresa Malkiel
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Theresa Serber Malkiel (1 May 1874 – 17 November 1949) was an American labor activist,
suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, and educator. She was the first woman to rise from factory work to leadership in the Socialist party. Her 1910 novel, ''The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker'', is credited with helping to reform New York state labor laws. As head of the Woman's National Committee of the Socialist Party of America (SPA), she established an annual
National Woman's Day Woman's Day, also known as National Woman's Day (a retronym in regard to the later international observance), was a commemoration conceived by labor activist Theresa Malkiel, and organized principally in New York City by the Socialist Party of Ame ...
which was the precursor to International Women's Day. In 1911, while on a speaking tour of the American South, she called attention to the problem of
white supremacism White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
within the party. She spent her later years promoting adult education for women workers.


Early life

Theresa Serber was born in Bar, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) on May 1, 1874, one of seven sisters. Serber and her family were
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and persecuted in Russia, so they emigrated to the United States, settling in Lower East Side of New York City in 1891, and seventeen-year-old Theresa went to work as a
cloakmaker A Cloak maker worked in the garment industry, often in an enterprise whose workers were represented by a union. In the 1920s, there were more than 50,000 people employed as ''cloakmakers''. Much of this industry was centered in NYC. While most of ...
in a garment factory.


Activism

Soon after her arrival in New York she joined the Russian Workingmen's Club. In 1892 she organized the Infant Cloakmaker's Union of New York, a group of mostly Jewish women, and became its first president. Over the next few years she represented her union in the
Knights of Labor Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...
, the Central Labor Federation, and the
United Hebrew Trades The United Hebrew Trades (Yiddish: ''Fareynikte Yidishe Geverkshaftn''), was an association of Jewish labor unions in New York formed in the late 1880s. The organization was inspired by and modeled upon the United German Trades (German: ''Deutsche ...
. Her exposure to the radicalism of the latter two groups reinforced her socialist beliefs, and in 1893 she joined the
Socialist Labor Party The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 ...
(SLP). She was an active member of the SLP for six years, representing her union at the first convention of the
Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance of the United States and Canada - commonly abbreviated STLA or ST&LA - was a revolutionary socialist labor union in the United States closely linked to the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), which existed from 189 ...
.Miller (1978), pp. 192-193. In 1899 she left the SLP and joined the Socialist Party of America (SPA). Malkiel believed that only socialism could liberate women, and that socialism, in turn, could not survive without the full participation of women. In theory, the Socialist party was committed to equal rights for men and women, but in practice, it made no effort to reach out specifically to women workers and showed little interest in their concerns. Malkiel concluded that socialist women would have to fight their own parallel battle for equality. Her 1909 essay, "Where Do We Stand on the Woman Question?" expresses her frustration with this state of affairs:
For the workingwoman of today finds herself between two fires—on the one hand, she faces the capitalist class, her bitterest enemy; it foresees a far-reaching danger in her emancipation and with all the ability of its money power tries to resist her eventual advent into the civilized world. In her anguish the workingwoman turns towards her brothers in the hope to find a strong support in their midst, but she is doomed to be disillusioned, for they discourage her activity and are utterly listless towards the outcome of her struggle.
In 1905, Malkiel organized the Women's Progressive Society of Yonkers, which became a branch of the Socialist Women's Society of New York. Although the socialist party was officially opposed to separatism, Malkiel believed a women's organization was necessary to attract women to the party, and as a practice ground for women activists. Women were tired of their limited positions in the party as "official cake-bakers and money-collectors," she said. Meanwhile, she wrote socialist propaganda leaflets and published numerous articles on socialism and the
woman question "The woman question", which is translated from the French term ''querelle des femmes'' (literally, "dispute of women"), refers both in historiography to an intellectual debate from the 1400s to the 1700s on the nature of women and feminist campai ...
in journals such as the '' Progressive Woman'', ''Machinists' Monthly'', and the '' International Socialist Review''. She also contributed to the ''
New York Call The ''New York Call'' was a socialism, socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The ''Call'' was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, following the ''Chica ...
'', a socialist journal she co-founded with her husband.


Woman's National Committee

Malkiel was elected to the Woman's National Committee of the Socialist party in 1909. She served as a delegate to several conventions, campaigned, wrote pamphlets, and, like
Rose Pastor Stokes Rose Harriet Pastor Stokes (née Wieslander; July 18, 1879 – June 20, 1933) was an American socialist activist, writer, birth control advocate, and feminist. She was a figure of some public notoriety after her 1905 marriage to Episcopalian mill ...
, helped raise awareness of immigrant women's concerns. She established suffrage clubs designed to appeal to working women and bring them into the party. She also established an annual
National Woman's Day Woman's Day, also known as National Woman's Day (a retronym in regard to the later international observance), was a commemoration conceived by labor activist Theresa Malkiel, and organized principally in New York City by the Socialist Party of Ame ...
, starting on February 28, 1909, which was observed by several European socialist parties as well as the SPA. Woman's Day was the precursor to International Women's Day which is celebrated each year on March 8. In 1909, she worked closely with the
Women's Trade Union League The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important ...
(WTUL) to support the New York shirtwaist strike with publicity and fundraising.


''The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker''

In 1910, Malkiel published ''The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker'', a fictionalized account of the shirtwaist strike. She depicted the strike from the point of view of an American-born worker who is initially wary of her immigrant co-workers. Over time she grows closer to them and becomes increasingly aware of the need to win the ballot as well as the strike, and of the need for more solidarity between male and female workers. After the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The ...
the following year, the book garnered public attention and helped trigger legislative reforms. Later scholars tended to dismiss the book as propaganda. In 1990 it was reprinted by
Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in t ...
with an introduction by historian Françoise Basch, and received positive reviews from
Alice Kessler-Harris Alice Kessler-Harris (June 2, 1941, Leicester) is R. Gordon Hoxie Professor Emerita of American History at Columbia University, and former president of the Organization of American Historians, and specialist in the American labor and comparative ...
,
Mari Jo Buhle Mari Jo Buhle (born 1943) is an American historian and William J. Kenan Jr. University Professor Emerita at Brown University. Early life and education Buhle was born in 1943 as Mari Jo Kupski. She graduated from North Chicago Community High S ...
, and the '' ILR Review''.


Tour of the American South

During a speaking tour of the American South in 1911, Malkiel was appalled to learn that white socialists were practicing
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
. In one Arkansas town, she was invited to speak at a gathering of over a thousand African Americans, but party organizers would not allow it. In another, the Socialist local refused to allow African Americans to join. At one event in Mississippi she gave a speech in the pouring rain to a group of dues-paying African-American socialists who were denied entry to the local meeting hall. Her scathing report in the ''
New York Call The ''New York Call'' was a socialism, socialist daily newspaper published in New York City from 1908 through 1923. The ''Call'' was the second of three English-language dailies affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, following the ''Chica ...
'' created a stir:
Lord preserve us from this kind of Socialists....We must not preach Socialism to the negroes because the white workingmen are foolish enough to allow their masters to arouse their prejudices against their fellow workers in order to keep them divided so as to play off one against the other.


Other activist work

In 1914, as head of the Socialist Suffrage Campaign of New York, Malkiel organized a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall. In 1916, she was one of three women appointed by the National Executive Committee to travel across the country campaigning for suffrage. Although the Socialist party was officially opposed to cooperating with suffragist organizations such as the
National Woman Suffrage Association The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement s ...
, Malkiel supported the idea, stipulating that socialists should always present their views from a socialist perspective. She was suspicious of well-to-do suffragists such as Alva Belmont,Adickes (2000), p. 52. and warned against being distracted by the "
false consciousness In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term describing the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the ...
" of bourgeois feminism. Malkiel went on two national tours for the Socialist party during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, speaking on women's rights and against American involvement in the war. In 1920 she ran for the New York State Assembly on the Socialist ticket and was narrowly defeated.


Adult education

Malkiel spent the last two decades of her life promoting education for immigrant women and assisting them with naturalization. She founded the Brooklyn Adult Students Association and directed its classes and summer camp.


Personal life

She married attorney and fellow socialist Leon A. Malkiel in 1900 and moved to Yonkers. She gave birth to a daughter,
Henrietta Henrietta may refer to: * Henrietta (given name), a feminine given name, derived from the male name Henry Places * Henrietta Island in the Arctic Ocean * Henrietta, Mauritius * Henrietta, Tasmania, a locality in Australia United States * Henrie ...
, in 1903.Basch (1990), p. 50. Although no longer a factory worker herself, she remained committed to improving the lives of working women. She died on November 17, 1949.


Selected writings

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References


Citations


Bibliography

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Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Malkiel, Theresa Server 1874 births 1949 deaths American socialists American suffragists American women educators American women writers Writers from New York City American people of Russian-Jewish descent Educators from New York City American socialist feminists Knights of Labor people