This Day in Labor History: February 20, 1917. Leftist women in New York City, led by the anarchist Marie Ganz, held a big protest against high food prices. This led to a boycott to drive prices down. It is also a great window into the history of women and household organizing on the left!! - ThreadSky

erikloomis.bsky.social • 3 days ago

This Day in Labor History: February 20, 1917. Leftist women in New York City, led by the anarchist Marie Ganz, held a big protest against high food prices. This led to a boycott to drive prices down. It is also a great window into the history of women and household organizing on the left!!

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trainboy.nyc•3 days ago

I'm pretty sure this was on the corner of East Broadway and Canal St!

viktorshtrum.bsky.social•3 days ago

Was this related to the strikes against kosher meat merchants by Jewish women around same time? I have a paper printed out about that I need to read

missfml.bsky.social•3 days ago

📌

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

World War I led to a rise in food prices, even before the U.S. entered the war. This upset many regular folks and led to opportunities for the left in America to agitate over it.

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

The left was pretty sectarian at this point, but not as much as it would be after the Soviets demanded fealty to their version of socialism.

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

So at this time, you had alliances between socialist and anarchist groups when it was required. Socialists under a group Mothers Vigilance Committee, led by Ida Harris, worked with the anarchist Marie Ganz to create protest conditions in New York over these food prices.

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ganz was an Austrian immigrant and sweatshop worker attracted to violent revolutionary change. After the Ludlow Massacre, she tried to assassinate John D. Rockefeller, Jr., which she did not do.

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

But she did carry a gun to the entrance of the Standard Oil building in New York. She wrote about this in detail after she left her anarchist phase and was happy to tell-all.

erikloomis.bsky.social•3 days ago

But protesting over high food costs wouldn’t have worked had it not been deeply felt among many American women. In 1917, the New York Times took a woman into the markets to estimate the cost of dinner for a family of four. The answer was 76 cents a meal, or $22 a month.

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