It was way back on June 19 of 2008 when I opened my email to find a message from Patrizia Sione of the Kheel Center at Cornell University, asking me if I could help a film maker in New York City named Daphne Pinkerson find the grave site of girl named Celia Gitlin. Well, that would be easy considering that I had visited Celia's grave many times since first discovering it in 2006. You see, 17 year old Celia Gitlin was one of the 146 people who died on March 25, 1911 in the worst industrial disaster in New York City history, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. As some of you here may know, I am something of an authority on this event and, in particular, the people who perished in it. As it turned out, an executive Producer at HBO had then recently learned while in the course of making a documentary about the decline of the New York Garment industry, that a family myth was true. Her great aunt Celia had died in the fire. Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, which premieres tonight at 9:00 PM on HBO, is not only wonderful and disturbing look at the destruction of a great American industry, but also a loving tribute by a great filmmaker to all of those young immigrant girls whose terrible sacrifice nearly 100 years ago changed forever the lives of American workers and the meaning and responsibility of their Government.
When I first learned about this in 2008, what was most exciting for me was the chance to finally answer a mystery. Who was Celia Gitlin and why was this young girl - who had only been living in her her newly adopted country for seven months when she died in the tragedy - one of the fourteen union martyrs chosen to be buried by the famous, pioneering Local 25 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, under their monument to the fire at Mt Zion Cemetery in Queens, NY? It was Local 25, led by one of it's famous founders, Clara Lemlich, which had sparked the first great strike of the woman's labor movement on November 22, 1909 - the Uprising of 20,000.
So who was this filmmaker? Well it turned out that Daphne Pinkerson and her Partner, Director Marc Levin of Blowback Productions, were making Schmatta for the documentary division of HBO films which is under the direction of Sheila Nevins. Now, I have to admit, despite the fact that I normally have absolutely no difficulty seeking out and speaking with family descendants of Triangle victims, this case was quite a bit different. You see, Shelia Nevins is something of a giant among documentary filmmakers and executives in the Television industry. According to her biography...
Ms Nevins has won nine Academy Awards, 13 Primetime Emmys, 22 News and Documentary Emmys and 18 George Foster Peabody awards for HBO. She has also received a personal Peabody award. In 2005, she was given the Documentary Emmy for Lifetime Achievement as well as another Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association. She is in the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.
Oy! Well, I sure wanted to know more about Celia Gitlin, but I knew there was just no way I was going to call this woman to ask. Fortunately, last November I began helping the Schmatta project as a creative consultant for the film's Triangle segment and Daphne assured me that one day she would introduce me to Sheila so I could finally ask her my questions. The opportunity came last March 25th at New York City's annual ceremony in remembrance of the fire. I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Brown Building, where so many young lives had once come to a violent end, when Daphne grabbed me by the arm to introduce me to Shelia who was attending the event for the first time.
Boy, was I nervous. What was I going to say to this Lady? Well, as I stood there shaking her hand it came to me right away. I simply looked at her and said what was in my heart. That it was a real honor to meet a descendant of Celia Gitlin. And it was. We may never know why Celia was chosen to be honored the way she was by Local 25, but we do know this. The sight of this young girl and her co-workers suffering such a terrible fate on those sidewalks in March of 1911 horrified and disgusted the people of the City of New York like no other event had before. For all who were there to wittiness this catastrophe, what they saw that day would forever be burned onto their retina's and into their consciences and would lead many to believe that something finally needed to be done to make the lives of working people and all New Yorkers safer and better. The many changes which came in the wake of the fire would forever alter the relationship of the people of the State to their government and give rise to a new progressive philosophy of government which would one day be expressed in FDR's New Deal and the Great Society programs which followed. For this, Celia Gitlin and the 145 other who died with her are true American heroes.
Tonight her grandniece along with the wonderful filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, in the film, "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags", lovingly tell the story of New York's garment industry which was once the city's largest single employer and a gateway to the American dream for generations of immigrant families to this country like the Gitlins. Sadly this once thriving and unique world is now largely disappearing, like nearly all manufacturing in United States, due to rampant deregulation and greed.
Here is the HBO trailer:
And a piece about the making of Schmatta by Nicole LaPorte at the Daily Beast:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
And a link to Blowback Productions for more information about their company and previous films.
http://www.blowbackproductions.com/
I attended the premiere of Schmatta last Monday evening and have to say that this film is really terrific and should be seen by everyone who cares about the future of working Americans and the labor movement.
Finally, I want to share with you a very beautiful letter that Ms Nevins wrote to her great aunt last year after realizing that the story she had long ago heard from her family as a girl was true. I reproduce it here with her kind permission. Please watch Schmatta :-)
Sheila Nevins
New York City
United States of America
July 2008
Great-Aunt Celia
Mount Zion Cemetery: Section 43
Queens, New York
United States of America
Dear Great-Aunt Celia,
It is nearly 100 years since your tragic death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on March 25, 1911, but it is just today that I discovered you really existed and that your death in the fire was real. It hit me hard and I cried for you; and yet I never met you. I had heard that Grandma Fanny’s youngest sister had died at the Triangle Fire, yet it always seemed like family folklore — and, anyway, my father was born some three years later. Occasionally your death would come up in family conversations, but I am sorry to say only briefly, and Grandma Fanny’s eyes would tear up and then we would go on to fresh borscht or stuffed cabbage and some relative from the other side would try to coax me to try some sweet-and-sour Russian food that I had no interest in. So here I am working on a documentary, called "Schmatta," on a Friday in the year 2008. The film is about the fall of the garment center as a microcosmic look at the fall of Industrial America. The producer mentioned immigrant labor and the fire. I say, "I think I had a great-aunt who died in it."
"Really," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"Well, there is a list of all who died," he said.
"Oh," I say, "but I don’t know my grandmother’s maiden name. She was born in Russia and she married my grandfather there. I’ll ask my Uncle Seymour," I say. "My father is dead. Uncle Seymour is my grandmother’s only living child."
"Uncle Seymour," I ask later that night. "Did you know Grandma Fanny’s maiden name?"
"Gittlin," he says without hesitation.
"G-I-T-L-I-N," I spell.
"No, two Ts."
"And what was her dead sister’s name, the one who died in the fire?"
"I don’t know," Uncle Seymour says. "But my name was supposed to be like hers."
Uncle Seymour is sharp as a tack at 84; he says his grief-stricken mother left the United States several months later to go to Belarus because she had to tell her mother, Lypska, that her youngest daughter was dead. There were only telegraph wires then, Grandma only spoke Yiddish and no one in the Western Union telegraph office understood how to write it. Anyway, she thought her mother would die if she was alone when she found out Celia was dead. So, Grandma Fanny would take the nine-day trip back to Russia. My uncle said she didn’t know she was two months pregnant with my father. Neighbors on the Lower East Side had gathered money for her trip and she gave birth to my father in Russia. She stayed with her mother for two years before returning to America. Pogroms had broken out in Belarus and Grandma Fanny and her newborn son hid in her mother Lypska’s grocery-store basement for two years. For reasons Uncle Seymour didn’t know, his grandmother died during her daughter Fanny’s stay. Maybe it was grief over your death that killed your mother. Who knows? That’s the history, Celia; your history as best we can tell it — your mother mourned you. The factory listed you as Selina Gittlin, but we knew at the morgue, it was our Celia Gittlin. On the death certificate it was correct — Celia from Clinton Street. You spoke no English. Neither did anyone in the family. Immigrants’ names were up for grabs.
Dear Aunt Celia, you died at 17. The fire was on the 25th of March. Did you lay there suffering on Greene Street? Did you die immediately and your corpse lay alone on the curb? The death notice said your skull was fractured. Did you jump? Of course, your sister Fanny got you the job at the shirt factory in America. She summoned you from Russia and said that you could be rich someday and meet a good man in America. She said you could share their one-room apartment at 174 Clinton Street until your prince came to save you. There was plenty of room for you there — it was a big room. The bathtub was in the kitchen but don’t worry; it had a curtain for privacy.
You came alone on a ship in early November, 1910. You brought a samovar* and a small sewing machine. I have the samovar. It wound up with me. I never asked where it came from. Now I know. I wish I could have met you at Ellis Island. If only for a moment, for you died five months later — that’s what it says on your death certificate. I wasn’t alive then either or I would have been there. Aunt Celia, did you try the doors? Were you trampled by other women? Did you jump from the window because the exit doors were locked so the working girls couldn’t smoke? Did you smoke? You were just a little girl. Who taught you to sew? I’m left-handed and terrible at sewing. Do I look like you? Did you think any of the thoughts I thought at 17? What did you pack for lunch that day? Could you ever forgive your sister, my Grandma Fanny, for bringing you to America? Did you walk to work that day? A 16-hour workday. A seven-day workweek. Were you tired that Saturday or did you think you were lucky to have a job in this shirt sweatshop? Would you have liked me, Celia? I want to know. And I want you to know how sad I am that you died so young. Did you ever know love? You were certainly beloved. Was it scary alone on the boat to America? Did the sewing machine and samovar smell of Old Russia? Were you proud to go to your new job? Did you audition for the Triangle boss with your Russian sewing machine? Celia, I mourn for you, for the lack of safety and the treatment of immigrants because I am one. I am outraged and panic when a crane kills a worker, or there is a senseless fire in a nightclub, or an immigrant is ruthlessly deported; for I am the child of immigrants — your grandniece. My father was born in Russia. Celia, I think I see the ghost of you. I see the babushka pulling back your kinky long hair so that it won’t be caught in the sewing machine. Uncle Seymour’s name is like yours, Uncle Sey-mour, Ce-lia. We feel you, Celia, in our hearts as a relative who owns a piece of our being. Sheila-Celia.
I will visit your grave at Mt. Zion Cemetery and place a stone for you from all of us. I’m not religious, but I believe in remembering. I want to tell you how sorry I am that you lost your life. My heart aches for you and all the young immigrant girls who lost their lives for greed on that day in March ... March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
May all of you rest in peace.
With all my love,
In Memory,
Fondest,
Your Grandniece Sheila