Uprising of the 20,000

This educational poster depicts women strikers in the historic strike that led to today’s International Women’s Day celebrations. The text reads:

In the first decade of the twentieth century, immigrant women workers revolted against the appalling sweatshop conditions in the garment industry. Italian and Eastern European Jewish women, many of whom did not speak English, launched a series of strikes that reached from New York City to Chicago and Cleveland. In 1909 the “Uprising of the 20,000” spread to 500 shops in 24 hours gaining widespread support and winning almost all of the demands voiced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Joined by women in the suffrage movement, they held a demonstration in New York on March 8, 1909 demanding better conditions, an end to child labor and the right to vote. Today, that day is celebrated as International Women’s Day. Sisterhood and solidarity nourished each other as these women wrote a vital chapter in both women’s history and labor history.