Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca

Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca (August 10, 1894 – August 16, 1946) was an American labor activist who particularly represented women workers in the garment industry. She was an early organizer for Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) after its split from the more conservative United Garment Workers of America in 1914. She became a board member in 1916 and in 1917 became its first full-time female organizer. Jacobs strove to embed a feminist perspective into trade unionism and was dedicated to helping improve conditions for working-class women. She encouraged a cooperative relationship between the two genders.[1]

She was born in Zemel, Latvia, to Harry Jacobs, a tailor, and Bernice Edith Levinson. She emigrated to the United States in 1900, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland. Bellanca's first job was as a hand buttonhole sewer for men's coats, at the age of thirteen. She earned three dollars a week for a ten hour day. In 1909, at the age of fifteen, she organized the Baltimore buttonhole makers into Local 170 of the United Garment Workers of America.[2]

During the Great Depression, Bellanca was a vocal activist on behalf of unemployed garment workers. She was also active politically on the municipal, state, and federal level. She was a member of the New York City Mayor's Commission on Unity, and served on several state commissions to end racial discrimination in the workplace. A supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped to organize New York State's branch of the American Labor Party.

Bellanca became vice president of the ACWA in 1934, and held that position until her death in 1946.

References

  1. ↑ [Nina Lynn Asher, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca: Feminist Trade Unionist, 1894-1946 (University Microfilms International, 1982), iv.],
  2. ↑ Jensen, Joan M. and Sue Davidson, eds. A Needle, A Bobbin, A Strike: Women Needleworkers in America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984: page 197.

Further reading

"Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 May. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/59742/Dorothy-Jacobs-Bellanca>.

External links