Response to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Born in Sawin, Russian Empire (today in Poland), Rosa Schneiderman immigrated in 1890 with her family to New York City. At age thirteen, Schneiderman ended her formal education to begin working as a milliner. In 1903, she helped organize her shop to join the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers’ Union; she soon rose through the union ranks and became vice president of the New York Women’s Trade Union League. Leading up to November 1909, she was integral in coordinating the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand, the largest strike by working women in the United States at the time. Schneiderman accepted the presidency of the Women’s Trade League in 1917, a position she would hold until 1949. Through this work, she befriended Eleanor Roosevelt, and, during President Franklin Roosevelt’s first term, Schneiderman was a member of the National Recovery Administration’s Labor Advisory Board.