LOUIS HYMAN

LOUIS HYMAN (b. June 17, 1888)

            He was born in Livenhof (Livani), Vitebsk district, later in Latvia, into a poor family.  Until age twelve he studied in a religious primary school, later becoming a worker in a tailor’s shop.  In 1902 he moved to England, became active in Jewish trade unions and in the socialist movement in Manchester and London.  In 1911 he arrived in the United States.  For many years he was a labor leader and public speaker.  Until the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, he was among the most active leaders in Communist trade union work, principally among the tailors; later, he began a fight against the Jewish Communists in America.  For a considerable stretch of time, he managed Local 9 of the tailors’ union in New York.  He served as vice-president, 1949-1956, of the women garment workers’ union, the “International” (ILGWU).  He began his writing with reports on Jewish laborers’ lives in England for Arbayter-fraynd (Friend of workers) in London.  He later published articles on politics and labor issues in: Frayhayt (Freedom), Morgn-frayhayt (Morning freedom), Hamer (Hammer), Eynikeyt (Unity—a weekly put out by the Jewish leftwing garment workers), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Gerekhtikeyt (Justice), Tog (Day), Forverts (Forward), and Hofenung (Hope—a periodical put out by the league against fascism and dictatorship)—all in New York.  In book form: Af di vegn fun kamf (On the pathways of struggle) (New York, 1929), 276 pp.  From 1956 he withdrew from active community work.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928); Zalmen reyzen arkhiv (Zalmen Reyzen archive) (New York: YIVO); M. Yudin, in Morgn-frayhayt (New York) (March 3, 1947); Y. Fogel, in Forverts (New York) (March 12, 1956); Gerekhtikeyt (New York) (June 1956); H. Shtigler, in Tog-morgn zhurnal (New York) (August 13, 1958); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 349.