History Makers

Abraham Lefkowitz

They made for an odd couple. Henry Linville, soft-spoken and almost courtly, with neither the temperament nor talent for personal confrontation. Not so his longtime and much younger sidekick Abraham Lefkowitz."He was a fighter," remembers Ruben Maloff, who served as Lefkowitz's assistant."He loved to scrap. He loved to jump to his feet with emotion." But Lefkowitz wasn't just a colorful smart-mouth, says Maloff.

Brief Chronology of the Life of Albert Shanker

Albert Shanker, A Passionate Teacher

Thirty-four years ago, as his fledgling union teetered on the brink of a strike, Albert Shanker was the linchpin of a last-minute settlement that laid out the goals that would dominate his thinking for the rest of his life.

Alice Marsh

Alice Marsh, the UFT's first legislative rep in Albany,was the only child of a working single mother who insisted she go on to high school while the rest of her elementary school graduating class went off to work.

Benjamin Mazen

He hated supervisors with a serious passion. To him, all the raises in theworld wouldn't change the fact that teachers were forced to work in a systemhe called "a thinly veiled despotism."

Charles Cogen

It's your typical August day in Washington, DC: One of those patentedpool-of-sweat afternoons when most people have peeled off as much clothingas good taste -- or at least the law -- allows. But here in his small Georgetown apartment, propped up in his easy chair,Charles Cogen sits in suit and tie.

David Wittes

If your idea of an accountant is a conservative,number-crunching nerd, you should have known Dave Wittes. "He was a fire brand and an old radical," recalls George Altomare. "When Al Shanker and I first saw him in action at Guild meetings we were in awe.

Ely Trachtenberg

By the mid-1950s it was apparent there was no shortage of rising young stars on the horizon. Still, none shone brighter than ElyTrachtenberg. "Broad-shouldered and handsome," wrote Dave Selden in his memoir"The Teacher Rebellion," "(Trachtenberg) had grown up in the hurly-burly of left-wing debate in New York City where socialism and union theory were constantly discussed.

Fanny Simon

Militancy lost its romance early in Fanny Simon's life. Only a teenager,she found out that a strike doesn't guarantee a happy ending. Her fatherlost his job and the family was uprooted when a strike by glove cutters wascrushed.

Henry Richardson Linville

Born in 1866, Henry Richardson Linville grew up in St.Joseph, Mo., and earned his Ph.D at Harvard before moving to the city and becoming a biology teacher at Jamaica HS. That's when the newly formed Teachers Union chose Linville as its head.

Jeanette DiLorenzo

UFT members can still catch Jeannette Dilorenzo's act as she regularly blastsNewt Gingrich and the rest of Capitol Hill's mob on the retired teacher'spage of the New York Teacher.

Jeannette DiLorenzo, union pioneer

DiLorenzo, who with her husband John led picketing in Brooklyn for the UFT’s first strike, held a variety of positions with the union and served as its treasurer from 1972 to 1993. She was elected Retired Teachers Chapter leader in ’93 and held that position until her death.

Jules Kolodny

When the union needed a sharp lawyer, it didn't have far to look as long as Jules Kolodny was around. A member of the state bar, he argued teacher rights cases before the courts and the education commissioner.But as impressive as was his legal mind, Kolodny was also a bona fide scholar,holding a doctorate from NYU and writing for scholarly journals.

June Temple

Like the others who gave up their nights and weekends for the collectivebargaining campaign in 1961, June Temple was a dutiful foot soldier. She could live with the long exhausting hours and no pay -- not even car fare. But for some there were worse privations.

Layle Lane

Born in 1898, Layle Lane was a toddler when a vow to lynchher Congregational minister father forced the family to flee their Marrietta,Ga., home. A graduate of Howard University with a master's from Columbia,she became a high school social studies teacher at Benjamin Franklin HS and an early member of the Teachers Union and later the Teachers Guild, serving on its executive board.

Martha Straus

Every army has its foot soldiers and the union's army is no different. Meet 961/2-year old Martha Straus. She's been around so long that she remembers when her Brownsville birthplace was called Goatville."That's right, there were goats in the streets," she says, with a laugh.T

Rebecca Simonson

Brilliant and articulate, no one ever doubted that Rebecca Simonson had a way with words. But it wasn't so much poetry as strategy that led the leader of the Teachers Guild in the 1940s to compare organizing to"opening a flower one petal at a time."

Si Beagle

In 1960, Si Beagle was one of the city's few supervisors to go out on strike, walking the picket line alone at Bronx's JHS 113. "I had no choice. How could I look in the mirror and rationalize it. Here Mr.BigShot. Talks, talks, talks, but he ends up a scab."

Sol Jaffe

In 1962, Al Shanker was after Sol Jaffe's job. The two had worked together closely in the Teachers Guild and the early UFT, with Shanker supporting Jaffe in his first bid to become the UFT's secretary. But now Jaffe had sided with the "militants" and the two were at odds.

William (Bill) Woolfson

Like a lot of other very talented people Bill Woolfson got into teaching because the alternative was the unemployment line. When Woolfson walked intoBoys HS in 1937 he was already 34 years old.