On the first day of spring in 1911, a terrible fire broke out in Manhattan’s Garment District. When it ended, half an hour later, 146 workers, mostly young immigrant Jewish women, were dead. This horror capping years of worker protests against intolerable conditions propelled a powerful coalition of New Yorkers to enact factory safety legislation that would become a model for the nation.
Professor Pamela Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University where she directs the Jewish Studies Program and received the university’s highest award, Scholar/Teacher of the Year. Her books include Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889-1985. A past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and the recipient of the American Jewish Historical Society’s Lee Max Friedman Award for distinguished service, her consulting work for museums includes the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Library of Congress. Her recent book, America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award’s “Jewish Book of the Year.” She is currently writing a book about the history of American antisemitism.