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| Founded | 1888 |
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| Headquarters | New York City |
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The United Hebrew Trades ( Yiddish:Fareynikte Yidishe Geverkshaftn), was an association of Jewish labor unions in New York formed in the late 1880s. The organization was inspired by and modeled upon the United German Trades (German:Deutsche Vereignte Gewerkshaften), formed decades earlier by German immigrants to the United States who were active in the German, and later the German-American, labor movement.
The United Hebrew Trades (UHT) was organized as a prospective central body of federated trade unions on October 9, 1888, by J. Magidoff, a member of the Yiddish-language Branch 8 of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP). [1] The Yiddish Branch of the SLP had been established the previous year and had attracted a number of ambitious and talented young activists to its ranks, including future newspaper publisher Abraham Cahan. [2] This SLP branch would be joined by the Russian-language Branch 17, which included active Jewish radicals Louis Miller, Lev Bandes, and Morris Hillquit, in forming the core of the new trade union organization. [3]
The new organization, the Vereinigte Yiddishe Gewerkschaften (United Hebrew Trades) patterned itself on an earlier trade union organization of German-speaking socialists, the Deutsche Vereignte Gewerkshaften (German United Trades), an organization which dispatched two official delegates to the foundation meeting of the Jewish organization. [4] The gathering was also joined by the editor of the SLP's German-language newspaper, Wilhelm Rosenberg. [4]
Only two tiny unions joined the new Jewish federation at the time of its formation, the typesetters' union and the chorus union — groups with a combined total membership of just 75 people. [4] Despite the organization's tiny size at the time of its establishment, a full slate of officers were elected, with B. Weinstein named secretary and Morris Hillquit chosen as corresponding secretary. [4] Delegates to the German United Trades were also elected. [4]
The United Hebrew Trades rapidly gained recognition by New York unions and by March 1890 the UHT could claim 22 affiliated unions, including sizable organizations of tailors and cloakmakers. [5]
In 1895, the UHT became a member of the SLP sponsored Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, becoming "District Alliance 2" in February 1896. Some of its constituent unions, however, were still affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and splintered to become the Federated Hebrew Trades of Greater New York in September 1897. As the ST&LA declined, the UHT disaffiliated in 1899 and merged with the newer federation.
By 1910, Weinstein was able to report that the UHT had 106 unions under its umbrella, consisting of 150,000 working men and women. [6] In 1914 the UHT celebrated its 25th anniversary in Carnegie Hall. Clarence Darrow and Samuel Gompers were featured speakers at the event. [7]
In May 1915, eight members of the association's Executive Committee were indicted in New York City and charged with hiring gangsters, including Benjamin Fein, to intimidate uncooperative employers. UHT secretary Abraham Shiplacoff told the New York Times that "we are not going to allow the reactionary District Attorney to eat our beloved leaders alive." [8]
By 1922, the UHT represented approximately 200,000 workers. [9]
In 1933, United Hebrew Trades' activists joined with other organizations and trade unions to form the Jewish Labor Committee, which had its founding convention in February 1934. In 1938, when the UHT celebrated its 50th anniversary, it had 250,000 members. [10]
In the 1990s, the UHT changed its relationship with the JLC, from that of an independent affiliated organization to the New York Division of the JLC.
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The Workers Circle or Der Arbeter Ring, formerly The Workmen's Circle, is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that promotes social and economic justice, Jewish community and education, including Yiddish studies, and Ashkenazic culture. It operates schools and Yiddish education programs, and year-round programs of concerts, lectures and secular holiday celebrations. The organization has community branch offices throughout North America, a national headquarters in New York City.
Morris Hillquit was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America and prominent labor lawyer in New York City's Lower East Side. Together with Eugene V. Debs and Congressman Victor L. Berger, Hillquit was one of the leading public faces of American socialism during the first two decades of the 20th century.
The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) is an American secular Jewish labor organization dedicated to promoting labor union interests in Jewish communities, and Jewish interests within unions. The organization is headquartered in New York City, with local/regional offices in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, and volunteer-led affiliated groups in other U.S. communities. It was founded in 1934 in response to the rise of Nazism in Europe. Today, it works to maintain and strengthen the historically strong relationship between the American Jewish community and the trade union movement, and to promote what they see as the shared social justice agenda of both communities. The JLC was also active in Canada from 1936 until the 1970s.
WEVD was an American brokered programming radio station with some news-talk launched in August 1927 by the Socialist Party of America. Making use of the initials of recently deceased party leader Eugene Victor Debs in its call sign, the station operated from Woodhaven in the New York City borough of Queens. The station was purchased with a $250,000 radio fund raised by the Socialist Party in its largest fundraising effort of the 1920s and was intended to spread progressive ideas to a mass audience. A number of national trade unions and other institutions aided the Socialists in obtaining the station.
Louis E. Miller (1866–1927), born Efim Samuilovich Bandes, was a Russian-Jewish political activist who emigrated to the United States of America in 1884. A trade union organizer and newspaper editor, Miller is best remembered as a founding editor of Di Arbeiter Tsaytung, the first Yiddish-language weekly published in America, and a co-founder with Abraham Cahan of the Jewish Daily Forward, the country's first and foremost Yiddish-language daily.
Baruch Charney Vladeck was an American labor leader, manager of The Jewish Daily Forward for twenty years, and a member of the New York City Council.
Maximillian Sebastian Hayes was an American newspaper editor, trade union activist, and socialist politician. In 1912 Hayes became the first candidate to challenge Samuel Gompers for the presidency of the American Federation of Labor in nearly a decade, drawing about 30 percent of the vote in his losing effort. Hayes is best remembered as the long-time editor of the Cleveland Citizen and as the vice presidential candidate of the Farmer–Labor Party ticket in 1920.
Morgen Freiheit was a New York City-based daily Yiddish language newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, USA, founded by Moissaye Olgin in 1922. After the end of World War II the paper's pro-Israel views brought it into disfavor with the Communist Party and its editor Paul Novick was expelled from the organization. The paper closed in 1988.
The Jewish Socialist Federation (JSF) was a secular Jewish Yiddish-oriented organization founded in 1912 which acted as a language federation in the Socialist Party of America (SPA). Many of the founding members of the JSF had previously been members of the Bund in Eastern Europe and sought to bring Bundist politics to the socialist movement in the USA.
The Socialist Party of New York is the name of two distinct, but historically related state affiliates of the American socialist movement located in New York state. Emerging from a July 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America, the organization existed first as the Social Democratic Party of New York, retaining that name even after the founding of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in the summer of 1901. A presence was maintained in the state as the Socialist Party of New York for the next seven decades.
Melech Epstein was an American journalist and historian. His two most famous books, Jewish labor in U.S.A. and The Jew and communism are considered standard works.
Dos Abend Blatt was a Yiddish-language daily newspaper published in New York City, United States. Dos Abend Blatt was launched as an outgrowth of the weekly Di Arbeter Tsaytung. Published between 1894 and 1902, it was an organ of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP).
Wilhelm Ludwig "William" Rosenberg was a German-American teacher, poet, playwright, journalist, and socialist political activist. He is best remembered as the head of the Socialist Labor Party of America from 1884 to 1889.
Simon Philip Van Patten (1852–1918) was an American socialist political activist prominent during the latter half of the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s. Van Patten is best remembered for being named the first Corresponding Secretary of the Workingmen's Party of the United States in 1876 and for heading it and its successor organization, the Socialist Labor Party of America, for the next six years. In 1883 Van Patten mysteriously disappeared, with his friends reporting him as a potential suicide to law enforcement authorities. He later turned up as a government employee, however, having abandoned radical politics in favor of stable employment.
Lucien Delabarre Sanial was a French-American newspaper editor, economist, and political activist. A pioneer member of the Socialist Labor Party of America, Sanial is best remembered as one of the earliest economic theorists to deal with the Marxian concept of imperialism.
The People was an official organ of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), a weekly newspaper established in New York City in 1891. The paper is best remembered as a vehicle for the ideas of Daniel DeLeon (1852–1914), the dominant ideological leader of the SLP from the 1890s until the time of his death. The paper became a daily in 1900, reverting to weekly publication in 1914 for budgetary reasons. Publication of the paper was moved to Palo Alto, California, during its later years, finally terminating publication in 2008. Its 117 years of continuous publication make The People the longest running socialist newspaper in the history of American political radicalism.
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) is a political party in the United States. It was established in 1876, and was the first socialist party formed in the country.
Sergei Egorovich Shevitch was a Russian newspaper editor and socialist political activist who achieved his greatest fame in the United States of America. As editor of the New Yorker Volkszeitung from 1879 to 1890, Shevitch emerged as arguably the most important leader of the Socialist Labor Party of America. In 1889, Shevitch was the leader of a split of the Socialist Labor Party of America, emerging victorious and serving for a short while as the National Secretary of the organization.
The International Working People's Association (IWPA), sometimes known as the "Black International," and originally named the "International Revolutionary Socialists", was an international anarchist political organization established in 1881 at a convention held in London, England. In America the group is best remembered as the political organization uniting Albert Parsons, August Spies, and other anarchist leaders prosecuted in the wake of the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago.
Max Pine was a Russian-born American Jewish labor activist.
