Cathryn J. Prince is the author of the new biography For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman. Her other books include Queen of the Mountaineers. She is an adjunct professor of journalism at Fordham University.
Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of labor leader Pauline Newman (1887-1986)?
A: It was sometime in early 2021 that I first learned about Pauline Newman, and when I did I was immediately drawn to her story.
I was captivated by so many personal aspects of her life – coming to the United States from Lithuania in 1901 as a child, her pursuit of learning in spite of never having the luxury of obtaining a formal education, the decision to raise a daughter with her lifelong partner Frieda Miller, the trove of writing she left behind.
And then of course the number of issues she championed– ending child labor, ensuring safe working conditions, fair pay, access to health care, women’s rights. The more time I spent researching her the more current she, and her work, felt.
Q: How did you research her life, and what did you find that especially surprised you?
A: I knew I wanted to start my research at The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives, Cornell University. However, because it was the height of the Covid-19 pandemic it was closed for in person research.
Fortunately, by the time I began my project the archivists returned to work and they were unbelievably helpful. I was able to request files and they would scan and email me what I needed. I would not have been able to begin my work had it not been for their efforts.
When the world opened again I made multiple trips to the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and also New York University’s Tamiment Library.
Beyond reading Newman’s primary source materials, I also delved into the papers of the other people in her life: her partner Frieda Miller, her close friend and confident Rose Schneiderman, as well as other labor leaders like Clara Lemlich, Mary Dreier, Frances Perkins, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Throughout the process I appreciated the chance to discover and sort through the ephemera of Newman’s life, from her naturalization certificate to the scores of post cards and cheeky greeting cards she and her colleagues sent.
There were also the reams of documents of a more serious nature – from testimony before Congress and the New York State Assembly to reports on things like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
Without giving too much away here, there are two things that especially surprised me.
One, it’s that she and her lifelong partner Frieda Miller raised a daughter together and it was just simply accepted that they were a family – it was not made into an issue.
Two, I was initially surprised to learn she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Of course the more I learned, the more I understood why she, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others in the labor movement took that stance.
Q: The writer Paige Bowers said of the book, “Prince pays a stirring, cinematic tribute to labor activist and writer Pauline Newman, whose Dickensian experiences as a child laborer in the early twentieth century inspired her lifelong fight for better wages, better hours, and safer working conditions.” What do you think of that description?
A: I am so appreciative of, and grateful for, Bowers’ description of For the Love of Labor. I think yes, there are definitely elements of Dickens in Newman’s childhood – from having to go find a job at 9 years old in a hairbrush factory, then a cigar rolling factory, then a shirtwaist factory.
In each case she was working 12-hour plus days, earning meager wages, being surveilled by supervisors, having timed bathroom breaks. The conditions were unsafe and unsanitary. But instead of being beaten down by this, Newman makes it her mission to educate herself and she devotes her life to lifting others up.
Q: How would you describe Newman’s legacy today?
A: Newman’s legacy is lasting and far-reaching. Hers is a story of grit and gumption. She knew that progress would be incremental, hard-won, and collective.
She began working in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side and in the end had a seat in the conference rooms of policy reform. She showed that real change begins when ordinary people demand dignity.
Newman had both a working and personal relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, which meant she played a part in shaping the New Deal.
Her intimate knowledge of working in sweatshops helped formulate the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, landmark federal legislation that among other things established the 40-hour workweek and ended oppressive child labor.
She served on the New York State Commission to enforce equal pay laws and was frequently consulted on state minimum wage codes, ensuring that "starvation wages" were legally challenged.
As the first female general organizer for the ILGWU, she cleared the path for women leading major unions today.
Liz Shuler is the first woman to serve as president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 60 national and international unions representing 12.5 million workers. There’s also April Verrett of SEIU, who is working to organize home care and service workers—sectors historically excluded from labor protection.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Aside from teaching and freelancing, focused on getting Pauline Newman’s story out. More than 100 years after Newman got a job in a hairbrush factory as a 9 year old, her message endures: labor rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: In all of Newman’s speeches, testimony before Congress and state legislatures, in all her articles and poetry and personal correspondence, I found that Newman not only longed to belong, but to make things better for as many people as possible – which of course stemmed from her own experience of losing her father at such a young age, arriving as an immigrant with nothing, going to work as a child laborer.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Cathryn J. Prince.
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