# Rose Pesotta

Rose Pesotta (1896–1965) was an anarchist, feminist labor organizer and vice president within the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
Part of a series on :
Anarchism :
Glossary
History
Outline :
Schools of thought
Black
Feminist
Green
Primitivist
Social ecology
Total liberation
Individualist
Egoist
Market
Philosophical
Mutualist
Queer
Religious
Christian
Jewish
Social
Collectivist
Parecon
Communist
Magonism
Without adjectives
Methodology
Counter-economics
Illegalism
Insurrectionary
Pacifist
Platformism
Relationship
Syndicalist
Synthesis :
Theory
Practice
Anarchy
Anarchist Black Cross
Anarchist criminology
Anationalism
Anti-authoritarianism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-militarism
Affinity group
Autonomous social center
Black bloc
Classless society
Class struggle
Consensus decision-making
Conscientious objector
Critique of work
Decentralization
Deep ecology
Direct action
Free love
Freethought
Horizontalidad
Individualism
Law
Mutual aid
Participatory politics
Permanent autonomous zone
Prefigurative politics
Proletarian internationalism
Propaganda of the deed
Refusal of work
Revolution
Rewilding
Sabotage
Security culture
Self-ownership
Social ecology
Sociocracy
Somatherapy
Spontaneous order
Squatting
Temporary autonomous zone
Union of egoists
Voluntary association
Workers' council :
People
Alston
Armand
Ba
Bakunin
Berkman
Bonanno
Bookchin
Bourdin
Chomsky
Cleyre
Day
Durruti
Ellul
Ervin
Faure
Fauset MacDonald
Ferrer
Feyerabend
Giovanni
Godwin
Goldman
González Prada
Graeber
Guillaume
He-Yin
Kanno
Kōtoku
Kropotkin
Landauer
Liu
Magón
Makhno
Maksimov
Malatesta
Mett
Michel
Most
Parsons
Pi i Margall
Pouget
Proudhon
Raichō
Reclus
Rocker
Santillán
Spooner
Stirner
Thoreau
Tolstoy
Tucker
Volin
Ward
Warren
Yarchuk
Zerzan :
Issues
Animal rights
Capitalism
Education
Love and sex
Nationalism
Religion
Violence :
History
French Revolution
Revolutions of 1848
Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA
Paris Commune
Hague Congress
Cantonal rebellion
Haymarket affair
International Conference of Rome
Trial of the Thirty
International Conference of Rome
Ferrer movement
Strandzha Commune
Congress of Amsterdam
Tragic Week
High Treason Incident
Manifesto of the Sixteen
German Revolution of 1918–1919
Bavarian Soviet Republic
1919 United States bombings
Biennio Rosso
Kronstadt rebellion
Makhnovshchina
Amakasu Incident
Alt Llobregat insurrection
Anarchist insurrection of January 1933
Anarchist insurrection of December 1933
Spanish Revolution of 1936
Barcelona May Days
Red inverted triangle
Labadie Collection
Provo
May 1968
Kate Sharpley Library
Carnival Against Capital
1999 Seattle WTO protests
Really Really Free Market
Occupy movement :
Culture
A las Barricadas
Anarchist bookfair
Anarcho-punk
Arts
DIY ethic
Escuela Moderna
Films
Freeganism
Infoshop
Independent Media Center
The Internationale
Jewish anarchism
Lifestylism
May Day
"No gods, no masters"
Popular education
"Property is theft!"
Radical cheerleading
Radical environmentalism
Self-managed social center
Symbolism :
Economics
Communization
Cooperative
Cost the limit of price
Decentralized planned economy
Free association
General strike
Gift economy
Give-away shop
Labour voucher
Market socialism
Mutual bank
Mutual credit
Social ownership
Wage slavery
Workers' self-management :
By region
Africa
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Finland
France
French Guiana
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Guatemala
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Korea
Latvia
Malaysia
Mexico
Monaco
Mongolia
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Singapore
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Timor-Leste
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam :
Lists
Anarcho-punk bands
Books
Fictional characters
Films
Jewish anarchists
Musicians
Periodicals :
Related topics
Anti-corporatism
Anti-consumerism
Anti-fascism
Anti-globalization
Anti-statism
Anti-war movement
Autarchism
Autonomism
Communism
Definition of anarchism and libertarianism
Dual Power
Labour movement
Left communism
Left-libertarianism
Libertarianism
Libertarian socialism
Marxism
Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner
Situationist International
Socialism
Spontaneous order :
Anarchism portal
Politics portal :
vte :

## Background

Pesotta was born Rakhel Peisoty in Derazhnia, Ukraine on Nov. 20, 1896, to a family of Jewish grain merchants. Pesotta was educated in both formal and informal settings during her childhood. She was exposed to the works of anarchists like Bakunin through both her father's library and in a local anarchist underground, and she would eventually adopt anarchist views.
Her parents arranged a marriage for her, but she did not approve, so in 1913 she emigrated to New York City and became a seamstress in a shirtwaist factory.

## Career
### ILGWU

In 1914, Pesotta joined ILGWU Local 25, which (influenced by the 1909 shirtwaist strike) was led by women and was heavily involved in activism and education of seamstresses. On behalf of the local, she researched the Sacco and Vanzetti case, becoming a friend of Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Pesotta regularly wrote for union and anarchist publications in Yiddish and English. Along with Anna Sosnovsky, Fanny Breslaw and Clara Rothberg Larsen, she published Der Yunyon Arbeter ("The Union Worker") between 1923 and 1927. From 1924 to 1928, Pesotta also contributed occasional articles to the anarchist newspaper Road to Freedom (the successor to Emma Goldman's Mother Earth).
Pesotta also regularly sought training, attending summer schools at Bryn Mawr and Wisconsin in 1922 and 1930, and attending Brookwood Labor College, a school to train labor activists, from 1924–26.
Beginning in the 1930s, Pesotta became a member of the ILGWU staff and regularly traveled to organize workers outside of New York. For example, in 1933, the ILGWU sent her to Los Angeles to organize garment workers. She organized the primarily Mexican immigrant garment workers, which led to the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike of 1933. Strikes were a rarity in this notoriously "open shop" city, and so her success in Los Angeles led to her appointment as vice-president of the union in 1934 (only the third woman to be so chosen, following Fannia Cohn). In Montreal in 1937, her efforts included work to transform the nascent movement from one focused on Jewish seamstresses to one that was also inclusive of French-speaking women. As a result, Catholic media suggested she be deported. She also worked in organizing efforts in Puerto Rico (1934), Akron, Milwaukee, and elsewhere.

### Resignation

After working extensively with the Los Angeles Local 484 while they were being organized, Pesotta sought to manage the local. Instead, ILGWU president David Dubinsky rejected her request. In response, Pesotta resigned from the union's staff and board. Her resignation letter specifically blamed sexism as the cause for her resignation, stating that the "men to whom I have been so useful" did not seem "to recognize the fact that I was competent" to manage locals.
In 1944, Pesotta refused a new term on the executive board of the union, specifically stating that she could not be the only woman on the board when 85% of the union's membership were women.

### Later life

After leaving the union, Pesotta worked briefly for the B'nai B'rith. However, she returned to work as a seamstress in roughly a year. She also wrote and published two memoirs, Bread Upon the Waters (1944), and Days of Our Lives (1958).

## Death

Pesotta died of cancer in Miami, Florida on Dec. 6, 1965.