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The following morning, approximately 15,000 shirtwaist workers took to the streets. By evening, the number swelled to more than 20,000. According to some estimates, almost 30,000 workers participated in the strike during its eleven-week duration, 90 percent of whom were Jewish and 70 percent women. “Learners” and “operators” made up the bulk of the strikers, but male craftsmen (who themselves employed “learners” and occupied a critical position in the production process) also marched on the picket line, thereby guaranteeing a complete work stoppage.

Pandemonium reigned during the uprising’s initial days as thousands of workers rushed to meetings, swarmed union locals, and milled the streets. In the confusion, some workers returned to their jobs, demoralized. At the same time, a number of small shops quickly negotiated with the union to gain an edge on their larger competitors. Thus, hundreds of workers returned to their shops, even as hundreds of others joined the picket lines.

Throughout the uprising, arrests and harassment continued unabated. In one month, 723 people were arrested and 19 sentenced to the workhouse. Bail averaged $2,500 per day, and court fines totaled $5,000. Overall, the strike cost $100,000. Clara Lemlich suffered six broken ribs and was arrested a total of seventeen times. In one egregious miscarriage of justice, a ten-year-old girl was tried without testimony and sentenced to five days in the workhouse for allegedly assaulting a scab. In response to such outrages, the WTUL organized mass rallies at the Hippodrome, Carnegie Hall, and City Hall in which the strikers’ plight was connected to the suffragist cause. Although a degree of mutual suspicion existed behind the scenes, this alliance produced a new perspective that merged class consciousness with feminism (later named “industrial feminism”).

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Though not a complete victory, the uprising achieved significant, concrete gains. Out of the Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers’ 353 firms, 339 signed contracts granting most demands: a fifty-two-hour week, at least four holidays with pay per year, no discrimination against union loyalists, provision of tools and materials without fee, equal division of work during slack seasons, and negotiation of wages with employees.

By the end of the strike, 85 percent of all shirtwaist makers in New York had joined the ILGWU. Local 25, which began the strike with a hundred members, now counted ten thousand. Furthermore, the uprising laid the groundwork for industrial unionism in the garment industry. Inspired by the shirtwaist makers, sixty thousand cloak makers—men, this time—launched the Great Revolt in the summer of 1910, and other garment strikes ensued across the country. After five years of unrest, the “needle trades” emerged as one of the best organized in the United States.

Less tangible, but equally important, the general strike convinced conservative veterans to accept women as capable union activists. The young women themselves discovered their own self-worth through the ideological ferment and economic struggles of 1909–1910. Many of them remembered the Uprising of the 20,000 as the formative event of their adult lives.