Karen Pastorello – författare

Karen Pastorello's pathbreaking biography of Bessie Abramowitz Hillman places this remarkable labor leader and Progressive Era activist at the center of the founding of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Bridging the gap between Progressive social feminism and the labor feminists of the post-World War II period, Hillman worked to end race and class injustice and improve the quality of life for working women, even as she was overshadowed by her husband, union leader Sidney Hillman. Interweaving Hillman's experiences as an Eastern European Jewish immigrant with a rich historical account of the founding and development of a key garment union, Pastorello reveals the prominent role of women labor activists in both the workplace and union leadership.

Women Will Vote celebrates the 1917 victory of the women's suffrage movement in New York State. Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello highlight the activism of rural, urban, African American, Jewish, immigrant, and European American women, as well as male suffragists, both upstate and downstate, who helped secure the 1917 referendum. They contend that this win energized the national suffrage battle, escalating the momentum for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.Goodier and Pastorello reveal how thousands of New York's suffrage advocates sparked a major political, social, and legal shift. Diverse women groups collectively built a powerful coalition that extended well beyond New York City's elite white leadership.Women Will Vote convincingly argues that the organization and agitation led to what one prominent suffrage leader called the "very greatest victory." New York suffragists' 1917 success helped change the course of American history.