Miller, Frieda S. (1889–1973)

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Miller, Frieda S. (1889–1973)

American labor reformer and government official. Born Frieda Segelke Miller in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, on April 16, 1889; died in New York City of pneumonia on July 21, 1973; one of two daughters born to James Gordon Miller and Erna (Segelke) Miller; B.A., 1911, Milwaukee-Downer College; graduate work, 1911–15, University of Chicago; honorary Ph.D., 1940, Russell Sage College; lifelong companion, Pauline Newman; children: Elizabeth (adopted, 1923).

Was executive secretary, Philadelphia Women's Trade Union League (WTUL, 1917–23); was a factory inspector for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU, 1924–26); did private charity work (1926–29); served as director, Division of Women in Industry, New York Department of Labor (1929–38); was active in the International Labor Organization (1930s–50s); served as labor commis sioner for the state of New York (1938–42); was special assistant on labor to ambassador to Great Britain, John G. Winant (1943); was director of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor (1944–52); served as representative on the United Nations' commission on the International Union for Child Welfare (1960s).

Frieda S. Miller was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, on April 16, 1889. When she was only five years old, her mother died, and her father sent her and her younger sister to live with their maternal grandparents. Miller's grandfather owned a large manufacturing company and, even as a child, Frieda was impressed by the loyalty his employees held towards their fair-minded employer. This early impression stayed with her. As an adult, she stressed the need for labor laws, especially regarding mediation, to insure a positive and stable relationship between employer and employee.

After receiving her undergraduate degree at Milwaukee-Downer College in 1911, Miller did four years of graduate work in labor economics and political science at the University of Chicago. Before completing her dissertation, however, she left the university and joined the social economy department of Bryn Mawr College as a research assistant. A year later, in 1917, she became executive secretary for the Philadelphia Women's Trade Union League, a cross-class alliance dedicated to the organization and education of and legislation for working-class women. There, Miller met the woman who became her partner, Pauline Newman . A Russian immigrant, garment worker and organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), Newman was, by 1918, president of the Philadelphia WTUL. In 1923, both Miller and Newman resigned from their WTUL positions and went to Europe to attend the Third International Congress of Working Women. While in Germany, Miller adopted a baby whom she and Newman raised.

During the 1920s, Miller worked for two years as a factory inspector for the ILGWU Joint Board of Sanitary Control. She also was employed as an investigator for the New York State Charities Aid Association, looking into housing conditions for the elderly on Welfare Island and Staten Island. In 1929, her friend Frances Perkins , then state labor commissioner, appointed Miller head of the New York Labor Department's Division of Women in Industry. In 1938, Miller became labor commissioner for the state of New York, the second woman, after Perkins, to hold that office. Six years later, in 1944, Miller moved to Washington, D.C., succeeding Mary Anderson (1872–1964) as head of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor. A year later, Miller formed the Labor Advisory Committee of the Women's Bureau, bringing trade union women into that government agency for the first time. She was instrumental in addressing the problems of women in industry in the postwar economy. An advocate of equal pay for equal work, Miller did not support the Equal Rights Amendment, fearing that it would "take away from women hard-earned industrial gains which have led to a better standard of living."

Newman, Pauline (1887–1986)

American labor activist. Born in Russia on October 18, 1887; died in April 1986 in New York; lifelong friend ofRose Schneiderman andClara Lemlich ; lived withFrieda S. Miller (1889–1973).

One of nearly 500 women who worked at the Triangle Shirt-waist Factory in New York City, Pauline Newman wrote about the miserable working conditions of the factory that became a deadly inferno on March 25, 1911. Shortly before the fire, Newman had quit her job to become a labor organizer, but she joined the huge march to commemorate the deaths of her fellow workers in early April. "It looked like the entire city of New York was at the parade," she wrote, "If you could call it a parade. And it was pouring. It was as if nature were weeping." Newman was the first full-time woman organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). She founded the ILGWU's Health Center and was director of health education from 1918 to 1980. Newman was also an advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor in the 1930s and 1940s, and was on the board of directors for Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers.

When a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, took office in 1953, Miller was asked to resign from the Women's Bureau. Throughout the 1950s, she continued her work with the International Labor Organization (ILO). She had been associated with the ILO since 1936 when then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her a delegate to the ILO's Inter-American Regional Conference. During the 1960s, although by then in her 70s, Miller was a representative for the United Nations' International Union for Child Welfare. She officially retired in 1967, moving into a New York City nursing home in 1969. She died there of pneumonia in 1973.

sources:

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980, pp. 478–479.

Rothe, Anna, ed. Current Biography 1945. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1945, pp. 405–407.