Benjamin Schlesinger.

Benjamin Schlesinger was born December 25, 1876, in Krakai, Lithuania, in what was then Russia, the son of Nechemiah and Judith Schlesinger, and attended the local Cheyder. His grandfather, Simcha, was Rabbi in Racinn, Lithuania. His father died when he was four and his mother some years later in 1909. He emigrated with an older brother to this country in 1891, settling in Chicago, and became an American citizen in that city on March 19, 1898. He was married to Rose Schenhause on August 27, 1899 in Chicago.

Schlesinger's first job after his arrival in Chicago was peddling matches but, a few weeks later, he was employed as a "floor boy" in a cloak shop. Two years later, when he was 17, and a sewing machine operator on ladies' cloaks and suits, he led his first strike, a successful one, in his shop. He was a delegate from Chicago to the convention, held at 125 Rivington Street, New York City, which founded the International Cloak Makers Union of America on May 1, 1892. Schlesinger, then only 16 years old, was elected treasurer. In 1895 he was elected recording secretary of the Chicago Cloak Makers Union, a post he held for at least three years. He became business manager and organizer of Local 5 of the Chicago Cloakmakers' Union in 1902 and, when the five Chicago locals united under a Joint Executive Board, he became manager of that organization.

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