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

At its core, Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century narrates Matilda Rabinowitz's experiences immigrating to the United States, working as an exploited laborer, advocating for others as one of few women labor organizers for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and embarking upon single motherhood. Although Rabinowitz published articles and poetry during her lifetime, she wrote this memoir originally for her grandchildren, and it has not previously been published. The recovered text constitutes what historian Ileen DeVault describes in her afterword as "a more emotional retelling of a critical time in the labor movement's past than we have ever had before" (263). This edition, featuring a creative series of supplementary contributions, enriches our knowledge about the experiences of immigrants, workers, activists, and women in the early twentieth century.

Matilda Rabinowitz begins her story in 1900 with the journey she and her family made from Ukraine to the United States. She details the harsh conditions she faced in American factories, where she produced shirtwaists, hats, and corsets while her family toiled at a variety of low-wage jobs. These years of factory work introduced Rabinowitz to the indignities of sweatshop labor and the importance of a unified workforce. She credits her "frustrated dreams for an education, and the struggle of our family to make a living" with her awareness of the "social and economic inequities" that drew her to the Socialist Party and to labor organization (88). Rabinowitz played a prominent role in the 1912 millworkers' strike in Little Falls, New York, and her memoir carefully describes her daily tasks as an IWW organizer there as well as her role in subsequent strikes in Michigan and South Carolina. Alongside these events, she candidly recounts the story of her decade-long intermittent relationship with her married lover, Ben Légère. Upon discovering she was pregnant, Rabinowitz elected to raise her child as a single mother, breaking with Légère permanently after an escalating pattern of physical violence. The memoir concludes in 1923 with an account of her challenges balancing motherhood with work.

Rabinowitz's deft prose is marked by careful record keeping and subtle social commentary. She precisely recounts dates, wages, working hours, and locations, detailing with rapt attention the string of jobs she occupied first in factories across the Northeast, then as labor organizer, and later in clerical positions. She reflects on the ways being a woman both aided and complicated her work as an activist. In this narrative, women maintain businesses, support penniless lovers, and enact the daily, difficult work of showing up while male counterparts rush in and out of town with much fanfare and questionable importance. Her memoir is well suited to illustrate the often-alienating immigrant experience, painful labor conditions, goals of the socialist movement in the early twentieth century, and women's experiences (as daughter, worker, lover, and mother) at this time in history, and its rich supplemental materials make it an appealing option for the classroom.

Accompanying Rabinowitz's text, this edition includes illustrations, commentary, and historical context that contextualize events depicted in the memoir. Robbin Légère Henderson, Rabinowitz's granddaughter, contributes the drawings, preface, addenda to each chapter, and a final chapter, titled "Matilda's Life Following the Events Described in Her Memoir." Henderson's work so richly shapes the text that it is tempting to describe her as a second author. Her black- and-white illustrations animate details of the text, lending her own interpretive eye to her grandmother's words. Her written commentary continues to fill gaps left in this posthumous publication. Explaining her methodology, Henderson writes: "I want to present this emblematic story as it was written. But I also want to contribute my feelings, insights, and discoveries" (vii). Her unique position as the author...