Labor Activism
All for One by Publication Date: 1967
All Together Different: Yiddish Socialists, garment workers, and the Labor roots of multiculturalism by ISBN: 9780814748367Publication Date: 2011
Common Sense and a Little Fire: women and working-class politics in the United States, 1900-1965 by ISBN: 9781469635927Publication Date: 2017- The Followers of the Trail: Jewish working-class radicals in America by ISBN: 0300043546Publication Date: 1989
The Jewish Unions in America: pages of history and memories by ISBN: 9781783743544Publication Date: 2018
Reds at the Blackboard: communism, civil rights, and the New York City Teachers Union by ISBN: 9780231152686Publication Date: 2011
Sewing the Fabric of Statehood: garment unions, American labor, and the establishment of the state of Israel by ISBN: 9780252041464Publication Date: 2017
The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis by ISBN: 9780300130706Publication Date: 2003
Civil Rights
How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America by ISBN: 0813525896Publication Date: 1998- Reds at the Blackboard: communism, civil rights, and the New York City Teachers Union by ISBN: 9780231152686Publication Date: 2011
The Spingarn Brothers: white privilege, Jewish heritage, and the struggle for racial equality by ISBN: 9781421445519Publication Date: 2023
Stepping into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the remaking of Jewish identity by ISBN: 9780817318246Publication Date: 2014
Housing Cooperatives
Rochdale Village: Robert Moses, 6,000 families, and New York City's great experiment in integrated housing by ISBN: 9780801448782Publication Date: 2010- The Story of the ILGWU cooperative houses by Publication Date: 1962
Working-Class Utopias: a history of cooperative housing in New York City by ISBN: 9780691234748Publication Date: 2022
Work and Activism
This section includes select resources about Jewish participation in New York's workforce, economic life, and activism. Jewish New Yorkers have been involved in the city's economic life in a myriad of ways, from founding some of the city's historical department stores (Gimbels, Saks Fifth Avenue, and B. Altman) and giving a special character to the city's famous Diamond District, to organizing labor unions and civil rights organizations.
The Library's collection includes many primary and secondary sources about Jewish New Yorkers' work and activism, including Jewish newspapers and organizational publications [link]. The Library holds materials about labor activists in the garment industry and other industries in the city. Unions with historically strong or leading Jewish participation include:
- Jewish Labor Committee
- International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU)
- United Hebrew Trades
- Hebrew Actors Union
- AFL-CIO
The library also holds materials about Jewish New Yorkers' relationship to economic and social issues, as well as biographies and memoirs of individual activists in fields from anarchism to Soviet Jewry to LGBTQ rights.
Suggested Subject Headings:
- Jewish labor unions -- New York (State) -- New York
- Department stores -- New York (State) -- New York
- Civil rights -- New York (State) -- New York
Keywords:
Jews Labor unions Civil rights Department stores Economic conditions Garment industry Employment Radicals
American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection Series:
Research Guides:
Industries
- All Together Different: Yiddish Socialists, garment workers, and the Labor roots of multiculturalism by ISBN: 9780814748367Publication Date: 2011
Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism by ISBN: 9780813553290Publication Date: 2012
A Coat of Many Colors: immigration, globalism, and reform in the New York City garment industry by ISBN: 0823224864Publication Date: 2004- Common Sense and a Little Fire: women and working-class politics in the United States, 1900-1965 by ISBN: 9781469635927Publication Date: 2017
The Great Kosher Meat War Of 1902: immigrant housewives and the riots that shook New York City by ISBN: 9781640124127Publication Date: 2020
My Daughter, the Teacher: Jewish teachers in the New York City schools by ISBN: 0813519748Publication Date: 1993
A perfect fit : the garment industry and American Jewry, 1860-1960 by ISBN: 0945447183Publication Date: 2005
Precious Objects: a story of diamonds, family, and a way of life by ISBN: 9781416545125Publication Date: 2011
The Rag Race: how Jews sewed their way to success in America and the British Empire by ISBN: 9781479847181Publication Date: 2014
Roads Taken: the great Jewish migrations to the new world and the peddlers who forged the way by ISBN: 9780300210194Publication Date: 2015
When Money Was in Fashion: Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, and the founding of Wall Street by ISBN: 9780230617506Publication Date: 2010
Further Research
- A Brief History of Jews and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960sOverview of Jewish civil rights activism and leaders in the U.S. in the 1960s.
- Civil Rights Movement in the United StatesHistorical overview of Jewish women's activism against racism and white supremacy, and support for civil rights in the U.S.
- The Jewish Working Class in America (Daniel Walkowitz, Oxford Research Encyclopedias)History of the Jewish working class in regards to gender, urban environments, labor, working-class Yiddishkeit, and more, with bibliography.
- Jews in the Civil Rights MovementArticle on Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & ArchivesDedicated to the preservation of original source materials relevant to the history of American labor unions, management theory as it applies to labor and industrial relations, and the history of employees at the workplace.
- Labor Movement in the United States (Alice Kessler-Harris, Jewish Women's Encyclopedia)Jewish American women's central role in the American labor movement since the beginning of the twentieth century.
- Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire (Cornell University)The site includes educational information and original sources about the Triangle Fire, held at Cornell University's Kheel Center, an archive of historical material on labor and industrial relations.
- Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives (New York University)Collecting material in all formats documenting the history of labor, the Left, political radicalism, and social movements in the United States, with particular strengths in communism, anarchism, and socialism.
- “Di Linke: the Yiddish Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War”: HomeArchival Resources and Rare Publications documenting the immigrant Jewish Left in the United States from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives and the Carl A. Kroch Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University.