| Birth: | 1872
New Orleans
Orleans Parish
Louisiana, USA | | Death: | Aug. 26, 1919
Brackenridge
Allegheny County
Pennsylvania, USA | 
American Union Organizer.
After the death of her husband, Charles Sellins, this widowed mother of four worked in a garment factory in St. Louis and there helped organize Local #67 of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. She later worked for the United Mine Workers of America in West Virginia, then in Western Pennsylvania. It is thought that her success was attributable to the fact that she realized that the backing of the miner's wives was crucial to the formation of unions and the success of a strike. She also recruited many black workers originally brought North as strikebreakers. On the eve of a nationwide steel strike, a confrontation occurred between workers and company guards of the Allegheny Coke and Coal mine at Brackenridge, and she was brutally murdered, along with miner Joseph Starzelski. Although her killers were acquited, she remains, for many, a symbol of sacrifice and devotion to the union cause.
| | | Burial:
Union Cemetery
Arnold
Westmoreland County
Pennsylvania, USA |
Created by: klf
Record added: Sep 01, 2008
Find A Grave Memorial# 29470046 |
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