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in the city: 5,000 garment workers, mostly white women, organized by Baltimore's
most powerful industrial union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union, struck
over 200 shops of Baltimore's largest single industry, men's clothing. Over a period
of weeks, there was constant mass picketing, frequent mass arrests, and repeated
mass meetings. Former garment worker Sara Barren later remembered that even
national ACW president Sidney Hillman "was surprised when he got to the Fourth
Regiment Armory and not only was the place inside packed, there were hundreds
and hundreds of people outside trying to come in.   ^

The militancy of the women workers was impossible to ignore. The
solidarity network of white Socialists, Progressives, and liberals grew larger and
larger. The major newspapers followed the progress of the strike on a daily basis.
And finally even newly-elected Mayor Howard Jackson acted -- by appointing a
commission. The head of the commission, though, was Professor Jacob Hollander
of Johns Hopkins, a well-know intellectual and heir to the socially-responsible wing
of the Progressive Movement. Hollander's commission, basing its findings on direct
investigation and on the testimony of garment workers and unionists, exposed the
dreadful conditions under which the workers labored. By early 1933, victory was in
the air, as 70% of the garment industry had agreed to ACW terms. ^

Organizationally, the strike was, though, a mixed success. The two largest
men's clothing manufacturers, Greifs and Schoeneman's, resisted unionization, and
Schoeneman's "ran away" to rural Pennsylvania. But politically (in the broad sense
of the word), the strike was a turning point for the Baltimore ACW and a stimulant
for the broader workers' and social movements of the region. ^

While the limited and sporadic stirrings of the popular mood were the
context, the immediate impetus behind the PUL came from a group of young
socialists who represented an emerging current of militant activism within