Common Sense and a Little Fire, Second Edition: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965 (Gender and American Culture)

Over twenty years after its initial publication, Annelise Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire continues to resonate with its harrowing story of activism, labor, and women's history. Orleck traces the personal and public lives of four immigrant women activists who left a lasting imprint on American politics. Though they have rarely made more than cameo appearances in previous histories, Rose Schneiderman, Fannia Cohn, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, and Pauline Newman played important roles in the emergence of organized labor, the New Deal welfare state, adult education, and the modern women's movement. Orleck takes her four subjects from turbulent, turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe to the radical ferment of New York's Lower East Side and the gaslit tenements where young workers studied together. Orleck paints a compelling picture of housewives' food and rent protests, of grim conditions in the garment shops, of factory-floor friendships that laid the basis for a mass uprising of young women garment workers, and of the impassioned rallies working women organized for suffrage. Featuring a new preface by the author, this new edition reasserts itself as a pivotal text in twentieth-century labor history. Preface to the second edition Introduction pt. 1. The Rise of a Working-Class Women's Movement, 1882-1909 Prologue. From the Russian Pale to the Lower East Side : The Cultural Roots of Four Jewish Women's Radicalism. Ch. 1. Coming of Age: The Shock of the Shops and the Dawning of Political Consciousness, 1900-1909 pt. 2. Working Women in Rebellion: The Emergence of Industrial Feminism, 1909-1920. Ch. 2. Audacity : The Uprising of Women Garment Workers, 1909-1915. Ch. 3. Common Sense : New York City Working Women and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage pt. 3. The Activists in Their Prime: The Mainstreaming of Industrial Feminism, 1920-1945. Ch. 4. Knocking at the White House Door: Rose Schneiderman, Pauline Newman, and the Campaign for Labor Legislation, 1910-1945. Ch. 5. Emotion Strained through a Thinking Mind : Fannia Cohn, the ILGWU, and the Struggle for Workers' Education, 1915-1945. Ch. 6. Spark plugs in every neighborhood : Clara Lemlich Shavelson and the emergence of a militant working-class housewives' movement, 1913-1945 pt.4 The activists in old age : the twilight of a movement, 1945-1986. Ch. 7 Witnessing the end of an era : the postwar years and the decline of industrial feminism Epilogue. Reflections on women and activism. "Over twenty years after its initial publication, Annelise Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire continues to resonate with its harrowing story of activism, labor, and women's history. Orleck traces the personal and public lives of four immigrant women activists who left a lasting imprint on American politics. Though they have rarely made more than cameo appearances in previous histories, Rose Schneiderman, Fannia Cohn, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, and Pauline Newman played important roles in the emergence of organized labor, the New Deal welfare state, adult education, and the modern women's movement. Orleck takes her four subjects from turbulent, turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe to the radical ferment of New York's Lower East Side and the gaslit tenements where young workers studied together. Orleck paints a compelling picture of housewives' food and rent protests, of grim conditions in the garment shops, of factory-floor friendships that laid the basis for a mass uprising of young women garment workers, and of the impassioned rallies working women organized for suffrage. "-- page [4] of cover.