Hillman, Bessie

Bessie Abramowitz Hillman, labor leader, union organizer, and first woman executive, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA).

A pioneer in the early 20th century labor movement, Bessie Hillman (née Abramowitz) was born in Grodno, Russia, in 1889. She emigrated to the United States in 1905 and started working as a button sewer in a Chicago garment factory. There she began her long career as a labor organizer, forming a shop committee to protest working conditions, hours, and pay. In 1910, she led fellow workers in a walkout at Hart, Schaffner and Marx to protest a pay cut. The strike drew the support of Jane Addams and the Women's Trade Union League, which hired Bessie Abramowitz as an organizer. It was during the Hart, Schaffner and Marx strike, that she met her future husband, Sidney Hillman.

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