Ida Braiman
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Ida Braiman (died February 5, 1913) (sometimes spelled Brayman, Breiman, or Braeman) was a Ukrainian Jewish garment worker killed while on strike for better working conditions in Rochester, New York. Her death brought statewide attention to the 1913 Rochester Garment Workers' Strike.
Early life
[edit]Not much is known about Braiman's life before she arrived in New York State as an immigrant to the United States from Zhitomyr, Ukraine.[1] Her age at the time of her arrival is given variously as 17 or 18 years old.[2]
Rochester strike
[edit]Ida Braiman and her father were participants in a citywide strike of the United Garment Workers of America only months after her arrival in the United States. On February 5, 1913, she was part of a group of strikers going to small textile factories encouraging workers their to join the strike.[3] The strikers, a crowd of some seven hundred people, picketed a tailor shop owned by Valentine Sauter. When picketers began to throw stones, Valentine Sauter used a shotgun to fire into the crowd, killing Braiman and injuring three others.[4] Although Sauter was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, a grand jury declined to indict him.[2] Several strikers from the crowd were also arrested for rioting.[4]
Braiman's death became a rallying point for the striking workers, and garnered support for the strike from middle- and upper-class women's suffrage organizers.[5] Five thousand people attended her funeral and processed behind the hearse carrying her body to the graveyard.[2] She was buried in the Waad Hakolel Jewish cemetery in Rochester.[2]
In 2013 Braiman was honored by Rochester labor organizations on the 100th anniversary of her death.[2] The memorial card that was distributed after her death was adopted by the women's liberation movement of the 1970s as a symbol of feminist history, and reprinted as a poster by the Times Change Press in New York City. now in Sebastopol California reprinting the poster [6]
References
[edit]- ^ Eisenstadt, Peter R. (2005). The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815608080.
- ^ a b c d "Memmott: Killing of teen changed garment industry here". Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
- ^ "February 4 (Corrected date): A Labor Martyr in Rochester". Jewish Currents. 2014-01-23. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
- ^ a b "GIRL STRIKER SHOT DEAD.; Manufacturer Fires from Window and Also Wounds Three". The New York Times. 1913-02-05. Retrieved 2018-01-25.
- ^ Goodier, Susan; Pastorello, Karen (2017-09-15). Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501713194.
- 1890s births
- 1913 deaths
- 20th-century Russian people
- 20th-century Russian women
- 20th-century Russian Jews
- 20th-century American women
- 20th-century American people
- 20th-century American Jews
- American trade unionists
- Protest-related deaths
- American murder victims
- 1913 murders in the United States
- People from Rochester, New York
- Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
- Murdered American Jews
- Jewish American trade unionists
- American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent