Timpson, Anne Burlak

Anne Burlak, 1931

Anne Burlak Timpson was born on 24 May 1911 in Slatington, Pennsylvania. She was the eldest of six children of Ukrainian immigrants, Harry and Anastasia (Nellie) Smigel Burlak. Only four children lived to adulthood. Although she wanted to be a teacher, Anne Burlak dropped out of school at the age of 14 to help support her family by working at the mill. Like many young women seeking employment in the mills, she lied about her age, sixteen being the legal age for workers. From 1925 to 1929 she worked in the silk mills in Bethlehem and Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1927 Ella Reeve Bloor came to Bethlehem to fundraise for the labor newspaper, The Daily Worker. After the meeting, she and Anne Burlak talked about the working conditions in the mill where Burlak worked. Bloor urged Burlak to join the Young Communist League (YCL), opening up "a whole new vision and purpose in life" for Anne Burlak, who was elected that year to the District Committee of the YCL of Eastern Pennsylvania. In 1928 Anne Burlak was a delegate to the founding convention of the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU). When she tried to organize the mill in her hometown, she was fired. Although it was easy to find work nearby, every time she tried to organize her fellow mill workers, she lost her job.

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