Jennie's new job at the Triangle Factory did little to decrease the tension between her and Crutchie; if anything it increased it.
Jennie was gone early and came home late most days, meaning Crutchie had to do most of the cooking and cleaning around the house as well as take care of Faith. And on Sundays, the only time they spent together was at church before Crutchie went out looking for a job (a so far unsuccessful endeavor). Jennie knew Crutchie was beginning to feel like a useless burden, but every time she tried to comfort him he refused to listen.
As for the factory work itself, the hours were long and Jennie's pay of six dollars a week would be deducted at the slightest offense. She hated it, longing to be back at home with Faith and Crutchie like before. The only good part of her job was the new friends she had made.
On Jennie's first day of work, she was waiting in line for the elevators, tapping her foot impatiently, when she felt someone grab her wrist. Suddenly, she was being pulled to the front of the line by a young woman even shorter than herself. The young woman pulled her into one of the elevators, grinning triumphantly as the doors closed and the elevator began to descend.
"Don't be afraid to push a little," she said to Jennie in heavily accented English. "Or else you'll never get anywhere."
"Thank you," Jennie said. "I'll remember that."
"First day?" the woman asked.
"How did you know?"
The woman smiled knowingly. "You have the same look on your face I did on my first day." She stuck out her hand for Jennie to shake as the elevator arrived on the first floor of the building. "My name is Miriam, Miriam Abramov."
Jennie smiled at Miriam and shook her hand as they stepped off of the elevator. "Jennie Morris. It's nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too." Miriam waved for Jennie to follow her. "Come. I always eat lunch with my friend Sofia in the park across the street. Join us!"
Sofia Rossi was a tall young woman who looked to be the same age as Miriam, about 20. She had a fiery personality and a bright, bubbly laugh. Jennie knew she had found true friends almost instantly.
-Break-
It was mid-November, just after Faith's third birthday, and Jennie had been working at the factory for a month. It was past lunch, near the end of the day, when Miriam whispered, "Jennie."
Jennie looked up from her sewing machine in surprise, and she looked around to make sure there were no supervisors around. Talking was strictly prohibited, but Miriam wasn't one to break the rules for no good reason. This must be important. "Yes?"
"There's a meeting tonight, to talk about what to do about going on strike," Miriam said.
Jennie knew as well as anyone how awful the conditions in the factories were, and she knew that there had been many meetings held lately to discuss what to do about it. Sofia often told her and Miriam of the latest news when they met on their lunch breaks.
"Really?"
Miriam nodded, dropping her voice even lower and speaking quickly to avoid getting caught talking. "Everyone will be there. Sofia says she's going, and I'm going with her. Will you come with us?"
Jennie quickly weighed her options. She supported the movement, but at the same time, she and Crutchie badly needed the money she was making at the factory. Jennie also knew how quickly strikes could go wrong- you didn't marry the best friend of two former strike leaders and remain ignorant about that sort of thing for long.
"I'll ask my husband about it," she finally decided. "And is it alright if I bring one of my other friends along too?"
"Of course," Miriam said. "The more of us, the better."
-Break-
"No. Absolutely not."
"Charlie, nothing's been decided yet! This is just a meeting."
"A meetin' to vote about if ya should go on strike!" Crutchie protested. "An' from what I'se heard, it's pretty likely everyone is gonna vote yes."
"Even if they do, I still might not go on strike. I'm just going to support my friends," Jennie tried to reason. "Besides, Katherine said she'd go with me."
"Katherine?" Crutchie exclaimed in disbelief. "You'se gonna drag one of our best friends, who has a 6-month-old baby an' a toddler, into this?"
"She was happy to go! She and Jack both said it would be fine!" Jennie cried. "It's just a meeting, Charlie. Just a meeting."
"It ain't 'just a meetin'!" Crutchie's accent was getting thicker, as it always did when he was particularly angry. "It's a meetin' which could lead to ya goin' on strike, which could lead to ya gettin' arrested, which could lead to ya sittin' broken an' bruised in a prison somewhere!" He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Damnit Jennie, you'se got a family to think about. Don't we mean nothin' to ya?"
"Of course you do." Jennie's voice was low and quiet. "And I won't do anything without talking to you first. But I just need to see what this is about."
Crutchie looked at Jennie for a long moment, his eyes full of an emotion she couldn't quite place. Then he quickly crossed the room and enveloped Jennie in a bone-crushing hug. Jennie grunted in surprise, but she quickly melted into his embrace. It had been weeks since Crutchie had shown her this kind of affection, and she welcomed it.
"Come home safe," he whispered in her ear.
-Break-
"Miriam! Sofia!" Jennie cried, quickening her pace as she caught sight of them outside the hall.
"Jennie!" They both waved back, smiling as Jennie strode up to them with Katherine following close behind.
"We are glad you came," Sofia said. She looked over at Katherine. "Is this the friend you spoke about?"
"I believe I am." Katherine grinned at both of the women, offering her hand and shaking both of theirs firmly. "Katherine Plumber. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Plumber? The reporter?" Miriam asked, a little disbelievingly.
"Guilty." Katherine held up her notepad sheepishly. "Jennie invited me here to cover the meeting."
Sofia looked at Jennie incredulously. "My friend, you are full of surprises."
-Break-
The meeting was lively, the hall absolutely packed with young women. Katherine scribbled away on her notepad for most of it, noting what each of the speakers had said. Jennie, Miriam, and Sofia also listened intently.
Jennie was surprised to see that most of the speakers so far had been men and that they had all cautioned the women to not strike. She wasn't sure what exactly it was that she had expected, but it wasn't this.
After hours of listening to speeches, yet another man stood at the podium. This man, however, was cheered wildly by the crowd as he began to speak.
"That's Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor," Katherine said in response to Jennie's unspoken question. "He's the star of this meeting."
"Star or not, I'd like to hear a woman speak," Sofia grumbled, but she fell silent and listened to what he had to say anyway.
When Mr. Gompers had delivered his address, the crowd once again began to cheer as he exited the stage. Jennie had to admit, it had been an impressive speech.
"Surely we will vote now," Miriam remarked. "We've been here for hours."
"I don't think so, not yet," Katherine replied. "Look, someone else is getting up to speak."
Sure enough, another man was standing at the podium. He wasn't more than a minute into his speech, however, when there was a loud cry in a language Jennie recognized as Yiddish from the side of the stage.
A young woman marched up to the podium, looking extremely determined.
"That's Clara Lemlich," Miriam said as the woman began to speak, once again in Yiddish.
"What's she saying?" Katherine asked, scribbling frantically on her notepad.
"I have no further patience for talk as I am one of those who feels and suffers from the things pictured," Miriam translated. "I move that we go on a general strike… now!"
The crowd hollered and cheered their approval, and Jennie looked around with a bemused smile on her face. She turned to Katherine. "I guess we're going on strike."
A/N: On November 22nd, 1909, a meeting was convened by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) to discuss a general strike. The workers wanted a 20 percent pay raise, a 52 hour work week, and extra pay for overtime. At the end of the meeting, 19-year-old Clara Lemlich (a union organizer) really did march up to the stage and address the crowd in Yiddish, urging them to vote to go on strike. The workers then voted to go on strike, and over the course of the next two days over 20,000 workers from 500 different factories walked out of their jobs and went on strike. This became known as "The Uprising of 20,000."
Miriam and Sofia are both my own OCs, but their backgrounds represent the backgrounds of the majority of the workers at the Triangle Factory (Jewish and Italian immigrants).
Jack and Katherine's second child, Clara Elizabeth Kelly, was born in May of 1909.
I apologize for my long absence from updating my stories on here, and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.