Rose Wortis
Rose Wortis (August 1895 – 20 December 1958) was an American labor organizer and communist activist.
Wortis was born to Samuel Shadduck and Chia Wortis in Krasyliv, Ukraine, in August 1895.[1] She emmigrated with her family to the United States in 1903.[1] By 1908 she was living with her mother's relatives in Brooklyn, working in a garment factory and attending night school.[1] Wortis, like many immigrant needle workers, joined the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU Local 25), and in 1925, she began to organize for the union.[1]
Having been active in the Socialist Party in her youth, Wortis joined the Communist Party USA in 1919, following the turmoil caused by Russia's October Revolution two years earlier.[1] She strove to push the ILGWU to the left, and resisted efforts to expel leftists from the union.[1][2] She later served as secretary for two of the ILGWU's leftist rivals: the Trade Union Unity League and the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union.[1]
In the 1932 and 1934 New York state elections, Wortis stood as the Communist Party candidate for comptroller.[3][4] She wrote and spoke about workers' issues, in both English and Yiddish, and was a frequent contributor to The Daily Worker, The Communist, and Morgen Freiheit.[1][5] Later, she found herself targeted by anti-communist campaigns, and Wortis was named as a Soviet agent by J. Edgar Hoover in 1958.[6]
Wortis died on 20 December 1958; she had been suffering from arthritis for several years.[7]
Selected works
[edit]- "Shop Delegate League in Needle Trades" (PDF). The Labor Herald. May 1922. pp. 24–25.
- "Women Needle Trade Workers Among Most Militant Fighters". The Working Woman. 1 (2). May 1929.
- "Social Democracy and the Elections" (PDF). Jewish Life. 2 (12): 24–26. October 1948.
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Smith, Judith (27 February 2009). "Rose Wortis". Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 12 September 2026.
- ↑ North, Joseph (10 March 1972). "Memories of Rose Wortis Bloom Among her Friends". Daily World. p. 6.
- ↑ "To the Voters of Chemung Country". Elmira Star-Gazette. 31 October 1932. p. 11.
- ↑ "Election Notice". The Buffalo News. 31 October 1934. p. 7.
- ↑ Gold, Lena (10 July 1955). "Rose Wortis, Garment Leader" (PDF). The Worker. p. 11.
- ↑ Lee, James (9 March 1958). "FBI Chief Tells of Red Deceit". News Journal. p. 35.
- ↑ "Rose Wortis, CP Leader, Dies at 63". The Worker. 21 December 1958. p. 15.
