Sidney
Hillman
was born in a Lithuanian village in Russia
on 23rd March, 1887. When he was fourteen he was sent to a Jewish
seminary. He left after a year and became involved in the trade
union movement. Hillman took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution
and when this failed he fled the country.
Hillman lived in England for two years before emigrating to the United
States in 1907. Hillman settled in Chicago
where he found work as a fabric cutter. He joined the union and after
he successfully led a strike in 1910 he became an agent for the United
Garment Workers of America (UGWA).
In 1914 Hillman agreed to become an official of the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in New
York. Later that year Hillman was appointed as president of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA). Under Hillman's leadership
the ACWA pioneered several important social and economic schemes such
as labor banks, unemployment insurance and cooperative housing projects.
Hillman was a member of the Socialist Party
but impressed by the policies of Franklin
D. Roosevelt when governor of New York,
became a supporter of the Democratic Party.
In 1933 Roosevelt appointed Hillman as a member of his Labor Advisory
Board and during the Second World War was associate
director of the Office of Production Management. Sidney
Hillman
died of a heart-attack on 10th July, 1946.
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