61. May 1935, 5th Anniversary book, modernist design with IWO fraternal history
- Description:
- May 1935, 5th Anniversary book, modernist design with the IWO's fraternal history from its 1930 founding with 5,000 Yiddish-speaking members to over 67,000 members by 1935. New "National "societies were invited to join during the Depression, which meant the growth of membership, benefits and assets under insurance. National Section histories explain how pre-existing Hungarian, Slovak and Russian societies joined the IWO followed by Italian, Romanian, Ukranian, Polish, Croatian-Serbian and Spanish-speakers who were organized into Sections. Photos show the medical and dental departments' affordable coverage. Articles by General Secretary Max Bedacht, and Rubin Saltzman, the IWO's founder and head of its Yiddish speaking Jewish Section, explain how the IWO split off from the Workmen's Circle (Arbeter Ring) in 1930 to promote a "proletarian fraternalism" that provides better benefits and politics at lesser cost. The volume includes an important essay "Fraternalism and the Negro People" by Louise Thompson that outlines the history of commercial companies denying and/or overcharging Blacks for insufficient insurance coverage. Thompson also explains that the IWO does not discriminate or profit from its insurance coverage or rates. Bedacht writes: "[Workers] are able to solve their common problems only by making their solution their common cause. But the unity required for this is prevented by bourgeois teachings of racial, religious, national and other prejudices. As a result, instead of unitedly hating and fighting against the capitalists and capitalism, the workers hate and fight each other because of differences in color of their skin, differences in the country of their birth, differences in their language, or differences in their religion...[the IWO] has in the first five years of its existence built itself from a group of Jewish workers into an international body. Negroes and whites are organized together; many branches and nine national language sections speak different tongues within the Order." Doodles on front cover. This text uses the term ‘Negro’ to refer to Black people in the context of the concerted efforts made primarily in the 1920s-1940s to fight racial discrimination. While the term ‘Negro’ might be read as pejorative today, the term was then used in a positive regard, including by Black leftists.
- Date:
- 1935-05
- Creator:
- National Executive Committee of the International Workers Order
- Identifier:
- International Workers Order (IWO) Records #5276, Box 48, Folder 13
