Ken's Labor Book Reviews From The Archives

"Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl." VHS video. 30 min. Produced and directed by Pennee Bender, Steve Brier, Josh Brown and Andrea Ades Vasquez. $75+$10 S&H. American Social History Film Library, 22D Hollywood Ave., Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J. 07423. (201) 652-1989.

From its first shots of a New York City subway train exiting a tunnel to reveal immigrant Lower East Side street scenes of 1909, the video "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl" puts us on familiar territory. But it is not heaven that is described in this history of the city's garment workers in the crucial year of 1909. We see the action through the eyes of Ida, a teenage Jewish garment worker, and her young Italian friend and coworker, Angelica. Rebelling against their families and ethnic tradition by together exploring the city's vibrant mainstream culture, they go to a new thing called the movies, as well as Coney Island and dance halls. They talk -- especially about boys -- and they also compare notes on the sweatshop where they work. Daily outrages include cheating by the bosses on the already low pay rates, sexual harassment, speed-ups and forced overtime. But it wasn't just talk. The union was growing, and workers young and old were getting restless and angry. In a mass meeting at Cooper Union, a young rank-and-file worker, Clara Lemlich, proposed a general strike of the whole industry. The strike vote won and the "Great Uprising of the 20,000" began. During the strike, there was no question which side the state was on. Ida, Angelica and countless young women workers were harassed and arrested without cause by the police, made to listen to degrading lectures by the judge, and imprisoned. They found allies in an unlikely place, the homes of the ruling class. The wives and daughters of the captains of industry, inspired by the new feminist ideology, joined the strikers from the garment ghettoes. Much has been written about the 1909 strike and the subsequent Triangle Fire in 1911, including Meredith Tax's novel "Rivington Street" (Avon, 1982). This sparkling video gives these crucial events new life. The focus on the lives of teenage female workers provides a natural bridge to the past for our own younger generation growing up in uncertain times, often without knowledge of their union roots. Fifteen-year-old Opel Kairson, daughter the Education Fund's Barbara Kairson, thought the tape was interesting but that younger children would need some help from adults in understanding it. She said that the lesson she learned is that "When you want something bad enough, you can get it, if you are willing to work together with other people who want the same thing." Some of the videomakers will be at DC 37 on Tuesday, May 24, to screen and discuss their work at 6:30 p.m. in Room 200. The videos and further readings are available for loan in the Ed Fund Library, Room 206. --Ken Nash, DC 37 Ed Fund Library

Click here to mail any comments about this web site to: bridges@ksknet.com