Common Sense and a Little Fire: Summary and Brief Analysis

Common Sense and a Little Fire:

Summary, Analysis, Evaluation

HIST 3343 Spring 2010

Common Sense and a Little Fire begins with brief introductions of the four main characters chronicled in the novel, and offers the author’s explanation for writing about them. Those women are: Rose Schneiderman, a gifted speaker who preferred to work with upper class men and women of the New York Women’s Trade Union League (NYWTUL); Pauline Newman, an idealist when possible, but a realist when necessary, worked with both the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL); Fannia Cohn, a sensitive girl who often tried to avoid unions and leagues because she felt the only path to advancement lied in education; and Clara Lemlich Shavelson, another talented orator who used her voice to mobilize the lower, working, and middle classes away from unions and towards organized strikes.

What all these women have in common is work experience in the garment making industry, and a shared culture of political radicalism. Annelise Orleck felt that these women were worth putting in to writing because they were some of the driving forces behind the women’s labor movement in America. Also, she believes that there is a significant lack of first-hand accounts of the trials and tribulations that such women and their followers faced.

Chapter one outlines the reasons why these young women felt the need to organize a workers’ revolution. Although all four women encountered different events, their respective experiences led each one to believe that a change in working and living conditions was warranted. Some women were moved by sheer hunger and the ever-present threat of homelessness. Newman noted that working 70-80 hour work shifts per week, with more than one household member providing income, was not enough to afford rent and food expenses.

Still others were motivated to action through their day-to-day familiarity with the working conditions of the factories. Newman described the factories as dark, smelly, filled with dirt and rats, freezing temperatures in the winter, unbearably hot in the summers, and inaccessible to drinkable water. Affairs were even worse for workers in the industrial factories – where the consequences for error included death and loss of limbs.

It wasn’t long before these young women realized that the systems put in place to protect them were corrupt and/or unhelpful. Even though child labor laws had been passed to ban night work for children, foremen would often be tipped off before inspectors arrived, allowing plenty of time for the young ones to be hidden. Using their acquired knowledge of unions and the teachings of socialism, the girls began recruiting members for various garment and labor unions.

Much of their fervor was inspired by a successful boycott of meats being sold at grossly inflated prices, and a somewhat fruitful rent strike. Such experiences, combined with male union worker’s outspoken ideas that women and immigrants were unorganizable, forced these two classes to begin working independently of the major union coordinators.

Chapter two provides a greater understanding of how the women’s labor, and later suffrage movements began in America (between 1909 and 1915). Perhaps as important as how the movement gained momentum, is the conditions under which it did so. One of the major problems facing potential unionizers was the police. Instead of protecting protestors’ rights to peacefully assemble, they would break up crowds using violent and aggressive tactics. Many women were forced to leave or ended up in the hospital with broken bones and the problems associated with blunt trauma.

Part of the “justification” for this police brutality was the unjust association of working class women with “working women,” meaning prostitutes. Although the author admits that some of the girls actually were prostitutes, it was because they were unwillingly forced into the trade by extremely low wages. This only helped to perpetuate the stereotype that female protestors were rebellious, misguided, and possibly evil; whereas a woman who simply obeyed the rules of an unjust society, and suffered with dignity and without complaint, would have been seen as a “good” girl.

Such ideas are further illustrated by the effectiveness of so-called “Mink Brigades.” Although union leaders representing both males and females would plead for the rights to non-violent assembly, and beg lawmen to stop the bloodshed, it would come to no avail. Only by recruiting upper class men and women and college students (who were viewed in a positive light during this time period) to join workers on the streets, would the police minimize their brutality. Only a rich person, or someone of proper class, would be taken seriously in the event that a complaint or lawsuit was brought against the city.

New light was brought to the labor movement when, in 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire and caused the death of 146 people (mostly women). While the fire may not have been preventable, it was the exceptionally poor safety conditions which caused most of the deaths (locked doors, inaccessible fire exits, dilapidated staircases, lack of fire alarms on all floors, etc.) This catastrophe heightened awareness among unions that safety concerns needed to be addressed as much as wage and hour standards.

In the same year, the WTUL took an open stance towards excluding immigrants from their union. The following year, tensions arose among different area branches of the WTUL, just proving further that there were numerous factors which prevented the labor movement from meeting all of its goals. At the same time, sexual harassment was finally becoming a union issue, as well as the gender hierarchy within women’s trade and union leagues, and equal pay for members performing the same duties.

Chapter three marks a decidedly different course for women wishing for freedom. The popular belief that equal opportunities in the workplace and domestic sphere would be suitable was clearly not going to satisfy all women. Female union members began to see clearly that many of their demands could be met if they had the power to vote.

The 1910s also featured new methods of protest learned from the British (parades, rallies, civil disobedience, hunger strikes, and flamboyant speeches), and a campaign strategy aimed at uniting an entire gender, as opposed to distinct economic classes. Although the largest women’s suffrage group, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) divided itself among races, and the WTUL made open requests to ban Asians, Schneiderman was able to strike down such rules, and help incorporate all women, regardless of race or ethnicity, into the suffrage movement.

As well-intentioned as the suffragettes groups were, their close-minded views on race and class hindered their overall progress. This spurred the creation of a new group, founded by Harriot Stanton Blatch and Schneiderman, the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women (Equality League). Schneiderman was also involved with another group, the American Suffragettes, made up of upper class and educated women.

These groups, as well as the National Women’s Party (NWP) and the Socialist Party – and a new one, founded by Lemlich, Mollie Schepps, and Maggie Hinchey, the Wage Earners’ League for Woman Suffrage (WELWS), created to attract the working class, were constantly butting heads. They all wanted suffrage, but each group had a different plan of action to get it, and what to do with it. Meanwhile, leaders from the Socialist Party, the AFL, the New York State Federation of Labor, and the ILGWU, renounced the groups that were still fighting for the advancement of the working class. Even after woman suffrage was won in 1920, these groups, and more, feuded incessantly.

Chapter four begins with an ending of sorts. Schneiderman and Newman both took steps away from the radical factions they had spent their lives associating with and creating, in favor of more traditional government roles. Pushing for pieces of legislation and organizing modest grassroots groups became their primary functions. Cohn continued her work with the ILGWU. Unfortunately, because of her strong distrust of the Communist Party (CP), the government, upper class women, other unions, and men, she lost many friends and nearly severed the connection between Lemlich, Schneiderman, and Newman. Meanwhile, Lemlich got married and involved herself heavily with the CP. This separated her from the other three because the CP had become a fundamental enemy to the 1920s American labor movement.

With Newman and Schneiderman’s increasing roles in the WTUL, they became recognized experts in the field of women’s labor issues. When Eleanor Roosevelt joined the WTUL, and wanted to gain information about the current state of affairs, she searched out the two, and eventually introduced them to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Essentially, they taught FDR everything he knew about the movement, and later became very influential to other sympathetic government leaders.

However, as their egos and socioeconomic class increased, their views on how to help the belabored women changed dramatically. Newman and Schneiderman began to advocate against a welfare state, which they had previously endorsed, and instead embraced the view that what women really need, is equal opportunity. Additionally, they sabotaged connections between what they felt were “their” unions, the WTUL and ILGWU, and the CP and Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). Finally, Schneiderman appeared to have turned her back on the militant unionist she used to be, while Newman settled down with a man and used her political clout to exert influence in Washington.

In the 1940s their decades-long battle against the male dominated establishment, and long time friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins paid off. Newman and Schneiderman played key roles in influencing the Washington agenda, especially concerning the minimum-wage, maximum-hours limits, an adequate workers’ compensation system, and laws for equal pay. The founding of these federal rulings are all due, at least in part, to them.

Chapter five resumes Cohn’s story. True to her roots, she still believed whole-heartedly that women would never stand on equal ground until they were all given a proper education. She created a unionwide Education Department (the first of its kind) within the ILGWU – and then ran it for forty years. This became the model for the following 300 union-sponsored summer schools across the nation. Cohn also understood that the unionized worker was human as well – and she needed roses. Thus began the undertaking of “Unity Centers,” places located near the schools, which provided baby-sitting, access to movies, music, a gymnasium, union meeting hall, and other such cultural escapades.

Unfortunately, even with all the advances in labor standards and woman’s rights, the unions were still heavily dominated by a patriarchy. With the ILGWU perpetuating the male oligarchy, and the CP hell-bent on dominating all the union realms, Cohn (and others) founded the Workers Education Bureau (WEB). Funded largely by her wealthy family in New York, Cohn was able to continue with her passion. Although the WEB was successful in many ways, Cohn drifted from union to union in a constant search for high ranking positions and the ability to help more of the disenfranchised. Speaking of union troubles, she says “Each side wants you to hate for the sake of love, to fight … for the sake of unity and solidarity. But for all of this there is a group of us which is making an effort to develop a progressive labor policy and to influence younger people in the labor movement (192).”

Chapter six chronicles Lemlich’s battles between her situation at home, and her lifestyle as a political activist. After leaving the ILGWU for the suffragist movement (because she was too radical for them), and then quitting that as well, Lemlich, not content to sit idly, focused on bettering the conditions of working class wives and mothers during the Great Depression. Using sit-ins, boycotts, lobbying, and strikes, Lemlich’s initially small band of wives and mothers grew into a keystone group of consumers with incredible economic power.

Wherever Lemlich moved, she mobilized a cause to support a higher standard of living. Be it in Brownsville with her anti-eviction strikes; Participating in the Housewives’ Councils of Greater New York, New Jersey, and Chicago, to redefine the wife’s role; Her continuous organizing for fairly priced consumer goods such as meats; Or her devotion to the CP and forming the United Council of Working Class Women to become a model group for future, younger housewives to become politically active.

For me, this book was a true eye-opener, and would make a fantastic companion to anybody who is learning about the time period of 1900-1945 (Prologue through Chapter 6). It illustrates four important aspects of Americans’ existence and culture that often go without mention: The roots of the Socialist movement in America, the roles that lower, middle, and working class girls played, and most importantly, the distinct flavors of gender disparities in almost every caveat of life – moreover, with a passion and level of detail that historical texts (that I’ve read) have failed to convey.

In both philosophy and political science courses, I have been lectured about socialism and communism and how the dialectic marks them as naturally progressive steps up from capitalism, but that really isn’t so. The move to integrate social welfare policies into American politics was unnatural and difficult. These first-hand accounts of Jewish emigrants bringing their “radical” ways of thinking to New York, and then working incredibly hard to spread prosperity through their communities and workplaces, is something that I was never taught in school. The way professors talk about it, you would think that everybody just picked up a copy of The Communist Manifesto and voted to help the disenfranchised and working classes.

Similarly, the history of woman’s struggle from 1900-1945 that I have been exposed to portrays most women as docile, (possibly) unhappily married homebodies. They leave out the corrupt unions, the sweeping cries of factory slavery and 80 hour work weeks, the police brutality, the constant eviction notices and blatant price gouging for food; the decades of struggle, male oppression, or the small victories that changed the political and social landscapes.

I had no idea how crooked the entire system was. Gender disparities infected every aspect of life, from fair protection under the law, to the norms of society. Truly, the domination and tyranny enforced on the female gender was outrageous. Married women would openly work harder, toil longer, and make do with less than their spousal counterpart, only to be told that it was fair for them to earn half as much as their husband. I was appalled at the tactics employed by industrial leaders to keep workers from unionizing, and the safety issues that led to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. I was unaware that when the government of the United States promised a free education, girls would be taught home economics and to pretend that they can read, while boys were schooled in Dickens and trained to be a leader.

Overall, the class politics that women endured quietly for so long can be equated to the forceful slavery of Africans in America, and should be taught as reminder of a horrible injustice in the same way that the Holocaust is. The social and legal dynamics behind gender subjugation in the “Land of the Free” need to be exposed more often in the way Annelise Orleck does it.