Theresa Malkiel

Theresa Serber Malkiel (May 1, 1874 – November 17, 1949) was a Jewish immigrant from the Russian Empire who became a prominent American socialist, labor activist, suffragist, and adult educator, best known for her leadership in the garment industry unions and her contributions to early women's labor organizing.

Born in Bar, now in western Ukraine, Malkiel immigrated to New York City in 1891 with her family and entered the garment trade as a factory worker. By 1894, she had founded and served as president of the Infant Cloak Makers’ Union, and in 1896 became a delegate to the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance, marking her early rise in socialist labor circles. She joined the Socialist Party of America in 1901, becoming the first female factory worker to achieve leadership positions within it, including heading the party's National Women's Committee in 1909.

Malkiel's activism peaked during the 1909–1910 "Uprising of 20,000" shirtwaist makers' strike in New York, where she participated in picket lines alongside the Women's Trade Union League and documented the workers' experiences in her 1910 novel The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker, which influenced labor reforms following the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. As chair of the Socialist Party's women's committee, she proposed and helped establish the first National Woman's Day on February 28, 1909, an event promoting women's suffrage and labor rights that served as a direct precursor to International Women's Day observances beginning in 1911. In 1914, she led the Socialist Party's suffrage campaign in New York and ran unsuccessfully for the state assembly. Later, in the 1920s, she founded the Brooklyn Adult Students Association to provide education to immigrant women, reflecting her commitment to empowering working-class females through literacy and political awareness. Married to socialist lawyer Leon Malkiel in 1900, she contributed articles to publications like The New York Call and The Jewish Daily Forward, amplifying socialist and feminist causes among Yiddish-speaking workers.