Highlights
Happy Anniversary to the ILGWU
114 Years Ago Today...
The ILGWU was formed on June 3, 1900, by eleven delegates representing local unions in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Newark. These local unions—the United Brotherhood of Cloak Makers, the Skirt Makers Union No. 1 of Greater New York, the Cloak Makers’ Protective Union of Philadelphia, the Cloak Makers Union of Baltimore, the Cloak Makers’ Union of Brownsville, and the Cloak Makers’ Union of Newark, New Jersey—were comprised primarily of Jewish immigrants who had recently arrived from Eastern Europe, many of whom were socialist and had been active trade unionists before coming to America, and in some instances, had become members of the ILGWU’s predecessor unions upon arrival. The ILGWU was granted a charter from the American Federation of Labor on June 22, 1900.