Girl Power: How Clara Lemlich Changed the World
The Museum at Eldridge Street hosts a special family program to learn more about what girls’ lives were like in the early 1900s, and how one brave activist made them so much better!
In November 1909, a young garment worker named Clara Lemlich stopped showing up at her job. Like many girls on the Lower East Side, Clara was a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe and she not only went to school, she also worked 11-hour days making dresses.
Angered by harsh working conditions, Clara’s fiery speech to a crowd of thousands at a union meeting sparking what newspapers called the “Revolt of the Girls” - 20,000 garment workers organized a walk-out at their factory jobs! Within months, that massive strike produced important changes to labor laws and working conditions.