Fanny Simon

Nov 8, 2004 4:23 PM

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. Simon was born in 1903 and came to the U.S. from Warsaw just beforethe outbreak of World War I. A lifelong socialist -- she was attracted tothe socialists and Eugene Debs for their steadfast opposition to the"capitalists' war" -- she joined the Socialist Party in 1929. She was a brilliantstudent and won a scholarship to Cornell and later went on to Columbia whereshe received a doctorate in economics. In 1940 she co-authored a book titled"The American Labor Movement." A history teacher at James Monroe HS, Simonwas a bona fide scholar to be sure, but she was no mere bookstore radical.Simon was openly critical of Teacher Union founders and early Guild leadersHenry Linville and Abraham Lefkowitz for what she perceived was their affinityfor legislative lobbying over militant organizing. A fixture around the UFTwell into her 80s, she was one of the founding mothers of Coaltion of LaborUnion Women (CLUW) and the UFT's Women's Rights Committee, and even foundtime to work with the labor movement in Mexico.