{{Short description|Russian-born American socialist labor organizer (1887–1963)}} {{Use American English|date=January 2023}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}} {{Infobox person | name = Matilda G. Robbins | image = Matilda_Robbins_Circa_1912.jpg | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = Tatiana Gitel Rabinowitz<!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{Birth date text|1887}} | birth_place = [[Lityn]], [[Russian Empire]] | death_date = {{Death date and age|1963|01|09|1887}} | death_place = [[Oakland, California]] | other_names = | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | partner = [[Ben Legere]] }} '''Matilda Getrude Robbins''' (1887 – January 9, 1963) was a Russian-born American [[Socialism|socialist]] labor organizer who first connected with the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] during the 1912 [[1912 Lawrence textile strike|Bread and Roses strike]] in [[Lawrence, Massachusetts]].
==Early life== Tatiana Gitel Rabinowitz (According to the ship's manifest where names of entering immigrants are listed, Matilda's original given name was ''Taube'' (Yiddish or German for 'dove'; however, she claimed a Russian given name, ''Tanya''.)<ref>Rabinowitz, Matilda "Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman," Cornell University Press</ref> was born in [[Lityn]], Ukraine.<ref>Lawrence Bush, [http://jewishcurrents.org/july-8-matilda-robbins-and-the-iww/ "July 8: Matilda Robbins and the IWW"] ''Jewish Currents'' (July 7, 2013).</ref> She moved to New York with her family at age 13, in 1900. Her name was anglicized to ''Matilda Gertrude Robbins'' in the process of immigration.<ref name="Peterson">{{cite journal |first=Joyce Shaw |last=Peterson |title=Matilda Robbins: A Woman's Life in the Labor Movement, 1900–1920 |journal=Labor History |volume=34 |year=1993 |issue=1 |pages=33–56 |doi=10.1080/00236569300890021 }}</ref>
==Career== [[File:Strikers outside of Slovak Hall during the 1912–1913 Little Falls textile strike.png|thumb|300x300px|Rabinowitz, front row, fourth from left, during the [[1912 Little Falls textile strike]]]] Robbins started working as a teenager in a shirtwaist factory, and worked various jobs from age 16 onward. In [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]] she made her first connections to the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Robbins became a key organizer [[1912–1913 Little Falls textile strike|during a strike in Little Falls, New York]], running the strike office, organizing a strike kitchen, raising money and legal aid, and fortifying the picket line over the course of fourteen weeks. Robbins and activist [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]] were then hired by the [[Industrial Workers of the World|IWW]] and spent three years traveling across the United States to assist with labor organizing.[[File:Candid photo of Matilda Robbins.jpg|thumb|Likely taken after her arrest in Detroit, Michigan. Photograph back reads: "Rabinowitz on the way to the workhouse - Patrol Kindley (illeg.) by police department"]]<ref>"Revolt, They Said". www.andreageyer.info. Retrieved 2017-07-13.</ref><ref name="JWA">[https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/biographies/robbins-matilda "Matilda Robbins"] ''Jewish Women's Archive'' (2017).</ref> She was one of only two women organizers for the IWW during its early years, along with Flynn.<ref>Meredith Tax, [https://books.google.com/books?id=sIJ6FHla0doC&pg=PA132 ''The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880–1917''] (University of Illinois Press 1980): 132. {{ISBN|9780252070075}}</ref><ref name="Peterson" /> She was arrested for her organizing work in [[East Liverpool, Ohio]],<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13238352/matilda_rabinowitz_1913/ "Miss Rabinowitz Gets into Trouble"] ''Akron Beacon Journal'' (March 22, 1913): 1. via [[Newspapers.com]]{{open access}}</ref> in [[McKeesport, Pennsylvania]],<ref>[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13238389/matilda_rabinowitz_1913/ "I. W. W. Speaker Arrested"] ''The Gazette Times'' (Pittsburgh) (August 9, 1913): 2. via [[Newspapers.com]]{{open access}}</ref> and in [[Detroit|Detroit, Michigan]], all in 1913.<ref>Steve Babson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_2J3YzdEgOAC&pg=PA33 ''Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town''] (Wayne State University Press 1986): 33. {{ISBN|9780814318195}}</ref> Later she was active in the IWW's Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee.<ref>Bennett Murashkin, [https://www.lawcha.org/labor-history-for-the-classroom-and-public/jews-labor-movement-past-present-future/jewish-role-industrial-workers-world-iww/ "The Jewish Role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)"] ''LAWCHA''.</ref>
Robbins wrote for the IWW publications for many years after leaving active organizing, and she ran the Socialist Party's Los Angeles office from 1945 to 1947.<ref name="JWA" />
==Personal life== Robbins had a longtime relationship with another labor organizer, [[Ben Legere|Benjamin J. Legere]] (1887–1972).<ref>Steve Thornton, [http://bportlibrary.org/hc/labor/a-labor-of-love/ "A Labor of Love"] ''Bridgeport Library/Bridgeport History Center''.</ref> They were parents together of a daughter, Vita, born in 1919.<ref>Joyce Shaw Peterson, [https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/1323074346/D0B4F2EE98684812PQ/1 "Choosing Motherhood: Matilda Robbins' Story"] ''Women's Studies'' 42(3)(2013): 271.</ref> Robbins died in 1963, aged 76 years, in [[Oakland, California]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Mrs. Matilda Robbins |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102187921/matilda-robbins-1887-1963/ |work=The Fresno Bee |date=January 11, 1963 |location=Fresno, CA |page=28 |accessdate=May 20, 2022 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref><ref name="JWA" /> Her granddaughter Robbin Légère Henderson, an artist, prepared illustrations for the 2017 publication of Robbins's memoirs, from a manuscript written in the 1950s.<ref>Matilda Rabinowitz, [https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100474940 ''Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century''] (Cornell University Press 2017). {{ISBN|9781501709845}}</ref>
According to a 2020 ''[[Industrial Worker]]'' article, Legere was abusive and sometimes violent towards Robbins.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dunn |first1=Brendan Maslauskas |title=Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: Matilda Rabinowitz's Wobbly Memoir |journal=[[Industrial Worker]] |date=17 June 2020 |issue=1790 |pages=11–12 |url=https://archive.org/details/industrial_worker_2020.06.17/page/n10/mode/1up |access-date=3 May 2026}}</ref> They divorced in 1926.<ref>{{cite news |title='Inferior to Rattler' Charge Wins Woman Divorce From S. F. Man |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2280511h&seq=360&view=1up |access-date=3 May 2026 |work=[[The Daily News (San Francisco)|The San Francisco Daily News]] |date=17 September 1926 |location=San Francisco}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}} {{Free-content attribution
| title = Revolt They Said | author = Andrea Geyer | documentURL = http://www.andreageyer.info/revolttheysaid/s.html | license = CC BY-SA 3.0 }}
==External links== * [http://reuther.wayne.edu/node/12906 A photograph of Robbins] probably taken at the time of her arrest in Detroit, Michigan in the 1910s; in the collection of the Walter P. Reuther Library, [[Wayne State University]]. * [http://reuther.wayne.edu/node/2691 The Ben Legere Papers] are also held in the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Robbins, Matilda Rabinowitz}} [[Category:American socialists]] [[Category:Industrial Workers of the World leaders]] [[Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States]] [[Category:1887 births]] [[Category:1963 deaths]]