Blue-Collar Heroes

Paterson Silk Strike

(1913) This local dispute garnered national attention. In the end, workers didn’t get everything they wanted, but the strike captured the imaginations of activists around the country, even in New York City—perhaps the last time an injustice in New Jersey received attention on the east bank of the Hudson. The silk workers who gave Paterson its nickname (Silk City) and its fortune were leaders in the movement for more humane working conditions.

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