Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century by Matilda Rabinowitz (review)

Matilda Rabinowitz (aka Matilda Robbins) is the only woman, other than Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was known as a paid organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (iww) during its heyday in the early 20th century. Rabinowitz played an important role in the Little Falls, NY textile strike in 1912, and organized in many lesser-known areas, from Shelton, Connecticut to Greenville, South Carolina.

Unlike Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's memoir, written with an eye for posterity, Robbins' memoir had a much smaller intended audience: her descendants. Written in the 1950s, her brief memoir was never published in her lifetime. In this volume her recollections of her life exist side by side with illustrations done by her granddaughter, Robbin Légère Henderson.

Henderson also plays the role of tour guide through Matilda's life. Each chapter of the memoir is followed by a reflection by Henderson, which describe memories of her grandmother or research that she has done on her life. While sometimes these afterwards simply summarize what Matilda has written, at other times they provide a fascinating interplay between past and present and help us to read between the lines of Matilda's words.

One such example is a personal scandal during the Little Falls strike, which Robbins describes in a few sentences as if it had happened to someone else. Robbins had a multi-decade relationship with Ben Légère, an actor and organizer for the iww (though he wasn't very successful at either occupation), who was married when the two first met. While Légère was jailed for strike activities, love letters that had been passed between him and Matilda were published in the local newspaper, causing much personal embarrassment. If we had only Robbins' words to go on, we may not have known she was at the centre of the scandal. Henderson provides transcripts of the letters from the local paper, adding depth to our understanding of the story.

For a historian, the most fascinating aspect of Robbins' writing is in the details of daily life. The story of her migration to the United States, for example, gives the reader an appreciation for what a leap of faith it was for Jewish people in Russia to take on the journey, passing from agent to agent on a trek that took over two months to complete.

For those of us who are trying to understand how organizations like the iww functioned, Robbins' eye for detail is invaluable. Her discussion of the Little Falls strike explains how exactly a Wobbly strike ran on the ground. She lists her daily schedule as an organizer, the needs during the strike, and how they were met. For example, in explaining how food and supplies were organized: "although it was the women strikers alone who toiled long hours in the kitchen, both men and women worked in the adjoining shop to clean and repair the arriving donations of clothing. Two Italian cobblers did wonders with worn shoes." (119)

Robbins did not shy away from revealing how she felt about many of the well-known personalities of the iww. On Big Bill Haywood, Robbins spent several pages criticizing him as a person and the role he played in Little Falls. "To me he seemed to lack repose, concentration, patience. Criticism upset him, and he defended even his small mistakes heatedly … There must have been times and situations that created Bill Haywood's famed personality and revealed his unique talents. I did not find them. I could not draw strength from his past exploits. It was the present that challenged. And in the present his approach lacked vigor and his methods realism." (123) In contrast to her disappointment in the "Great Man," she has much praise for those Wobblies unknown to history who did the hard tasks of keeping the strike running. She also has kind words about Vincent Saint John, "The Saint," General Secretary of the iww during...