An illustrated account of immigrant Clara Lemlich's pivotal role in the influential 1909 women laborer's strike describes how she worked grueling hours to acquire an education and support her family before organizing a massive walkout to protest the unfair working conditions in New York's garment district.

"A historical fiction novel in verse detailing the life of Clara Lemlich and her struggle for women's labor rights in the early 20th century in New York."--

Matilda Rabinowitz's illustrated memoir challenges assumptions about the lives of early twentieth-century women. She describes the ways in which she and her contemporaries rejected the intellectual and social restrictions imposed on women as they sought political and economic equality in the first half of the twentieth century. Rabinowitz devoted her labor and commitment to the notion that women should feel entitled to independence, equal rights,...

When Clara arrived in America, she didn't know that young women had to go to work and grow up fast. But that didn't stop Clara. She went to night school and helped her family by sewing in a factory. She never accepted that girls should be treated poorly with low pay, so she led the largest walkout of women workers the country had seen. She learned that everyone deserved a fair chance, to stand and fight for what she wanted, and, most importantly,...