Clara and Mr. Tiffany

  An apple and grape lamp gave the girls a wide range of color choices. The more artistic freedom I gave them, the more I realized that these weren’t my lamps. They were ours. It wasn’t just my department that was threatened. It was ours.

  There was nothing like the tulips in the parks to make one cheerful, and when one sees cheerful things, I reasoned, fear loosens its grip. On a brisk but calm Sunday with the streets splashed with sunlight, I armed myself with a sketch pad and colored pencils and set out on my wheel alone, working out my frustration with the muscles of my legs. Stuyvesant Square was dressed in yellow tulips as bright as canaries. Gramercy Park was bordered in deep red tulips the color of ripe strawberries, and Madison Square Park wore the delicious blush of a peach—a feast of the palate, and the palette. I wanted to swallow that color, that whole tulip, in fact. The desire was so intense that I saw, as a vision of the mind, the peach color already in me.

  The impulse to love a flower and to create a lamp were the same to me. It was in the air. It took my breath away. I would fight tooth and nail, if need be, to continue. I tried to hold on to the glory of tulips as I rode home, but nothing can dampen your spirit like the end of a day of respite from ominous forces.

  JULIA’S MOTHER DIED at home, having refused to go to a hospital. She left a handwritten will in Polish giving the husband ten dollars to prevent his suing the “estate,” Julia translated. One hundred fifteen was to be spent on her funeral and burial, the remaining seventy for her children. I just couldn’t stomach the Old World notion that paying for one’s burial is more important than paying to save one’s life.

  At the funeral the older brother put on a big act, wailing on his knees. His posturing nauseated me. He’d left Julia the tasks of removal from the morgue, the death certificate, the funeral arrangements, the selection of a plot in Potter’s Field, the borrowing of black clothes for the funeral, and the daily responsibility of cooking for the family. Hardest of all, she had to keep the money out of her father’s hands. She was only fifteen but looked about twelve. Through it all, she had that sickening, set-jaw look of sticking to her menfolk to the end.

  MORE CLOSED DOORS! Now even Nellie came into my studio and closed them. There was nothing like a strike brewing to keep the hinges working.

  She drew the little chair alongside me. “I have something to tell you.” Leaning forward so no one would hear, she asked, “Do you know how Patrick waits for me outside the workers’ door?”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to get married.”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Driscoll. I’m too young for marryin’. You don’t have to be worryin’ none. My papa won’t let me for six more years.”

  I let out an exaggerated breath of relief, which made her freckled cheeks turn pink.

  “It’s this. I was about to go through the workers’ doorway on Twenty-fifth when I heard some angry voices. Well, not angry.” Nellie searched for a word.

  “Agitated?”

  She looked blank.

  “Stirred up?” I shook my hands to give her the idea.

  “Something like that. They were arguing. I couldn’t hear everything, because I was hiding behind the door, ye see, but I did hear the words strike, Friday, and both doors. And I heard someone say, mean like, that it was only a matter of time till they take over our lamps too and shut us down for good and all.”

  A shard of glass thrust beneath my skin would have been easier to take than that.

  “I suspected as much. Does Patrick know you heard this?”

  “I don’t think so. When I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, I had to go out like on every other day.”

  “You did the right thing. Thank you for telling me. Don’t mention it to anyone.”

  I marched right into Mr. Thomas’s office and told him I knew the men’s long-range plans, not just to win the exclusive right to make windows but eventually to obliterate our lamp operation as well, which was tantamount to firing us all.

  “I will not have my girls ousted by the petty jealousy and fears of the men. We ought to be colleagues, not enemies.”

  “Granted. I can’t speak about windows, but as for shades, the firm will put up a fight.” He shuffled papers impatiently. “I would rather see every man in the place out of work for a year than see your department disbanded.”

  “That’s an extravagant statement, but you are only one. The two hundred men seem like an army to me, and they have the strength of a union behind them. You did nothing to get the two windows returned to us, and you haven’t given us any window commissions since. How can I count on you to block the move against our lamps?”

  He hesitated. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Equivocator.

  “You cannot allow what I have built up for this company to be so disrespected.”

  “I said I’ll do what I can.”

  “For the good of the company, you had better do better than you did with those stolen windows.”

  I PACED IN MY BEDROOM that evening. “Weasel!” I said out loud. Even though I liked Mr. Thomas tolerably better than Mr. Mitchell, I couldn’t trust him to support us. He would crumple at the first challenge. “Mouse!” All I’d worked for might be ripped away from us. My girls, what would they do? Go their separate ways to find new jobs? Our beautiful community. Did all that I had built up amount to nothing? “Rat!”

  Alice poked her head in the doorway. “Did you see a rat?”

  “Yes, a two-legged one. In fact, two hundred of them. The men are going on strike against us. They’ll picket on Friday.”

  “Oh, no!” She flumped down on the bed.

  “This is the reward we get for beautiful work. Extinction.”

  “The reward for being women. What does Mr. Tiffany say?”

  “He’s been suspiciously scarce lately.”

  “He could at least send you word of what he intends to do.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’s probably feeling tremendous pressure from the union. I can just imagine Mr. Platt telling him to give in and fire us all, pointing out how much money that would save.”

  “No. That wouldn’t happen. Your lamps are moneymakers.”

  “They’d be given to the men.” I took off my shoes and threw them at the corner of the room. “It hurts because I think so much of him, and thought he felt the same about me.”

  “A man might say, ‘Don’t take it personally,’ and shrug it off, but I know that’s impossible for you.”

  She sat biting her thumbnail, then leapt off the bed and dashed out the door. After a short while, she came back with George, Dudley, and Bernard.

  “This stinks awfuller than a she-skunk in heat,” Dudley said, and waited expectantly for at least a smile from me.

  “What are you going to do?” Bernard asked.

  “Stage a march, like the suffragettes. Arms linked.”

  “Bully! Right up Fourth Avenue. Bust right through their picket line.” George swung his fist into the air.

  “I meant that sardonically, George.”

  “Mean it seriously, Clara,” Bernard said evenly.

  The idea did have merit as a show of force. Rose Schneiderman would certainly think so.

  “It’s not like we’d be scabs. We aren’t strikebreakers hired to do the men’s work. We would just be going to our own jobs, together.”

  “Fifth Avenue might be better,” Bernard said. “More visibility. More embarrassment to Tiffany if he closed the department.”

  “But it’s wider. We’ll look less effective strung out across it.”

  “Not if I get the women in Corona to join,” Alice said.

  “I know Lillian would. You work on them tomorrow, but it’s got to be a secret.”

  “I changed my mind,” Bernard said. “Fourth is better. Ripping, in fact. That way, they’ll see you coming blocks away and hear the horns on the motorcars. Build up more tension.”

  “You need a banner,” George said.

  Dudley was quick to offer to
make one. “What do you want it to say?”

  “Sissy Tiffany men want women’s work. Unfair,” said George brightly.

  “No, George.” I thought a moment. “Tiffany Studios Women’s Department declares women’s right to work in the arts.”

  “We need a slogan,” Alice said. She darted out to her room and came back brandishing a copy of Revolution, Susan B. Anthony’s periodical. “We can use her motto. ‘The true republic—men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.’ ”

  “Good.”

  “Edwin would be proud of you, Clara,” George said.

  I felt stronger just remembering his rallying speech at Cooper Union.

  “Don’t tell Henry Belknap. That would destroy the element of surprise.”

  They all clamored down to dinner.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Alice asked.

  “Not just yet. I have to get my thoughts in order.”

  I wrote a note for the next day.

  Women of Tiffany Studios:

  Read this and send it around the room. Make sure it gets back to me.

  I’ve been informed that the Men’s Window Department aims to shut us down completely. We must take immediate counteraction, all of us together. Meet at the southwest corner of Madison Square Park right after work. On the way, take a good look at your lamps in the showroom windows.

  Secrecy is important.

  Clara

  CHAPTER 38

  MADISON SQUARE PARK

  AFTER LUNCH THE NEXT DAY, I HANDED THE NOTE TO CARRIE. She read it, gave me a serious glance, and passed it to Nellie. Nellie’s hand clamped over her mouth. She looked at me in agony and passed it to Mary. After Mary read it, she gave Nellie a steady, understanding look. When Minnie passed it to Julia Zevesky, Julia stared at it a long time. She took it to Olga, who read it in Polish, and they had a long, heated conversation. I saw that I might have a rugged time ahead of me. Olga passed it to Beatrix, who didn’t seem surprised in the least. Note in hand, she knocked on Agnes’s door. I hadn’t intended to involve Agnes, and I didn’t expect her participation, but I would certainly welcome it.

  When the note had made the rounds, Miss Stoney handed it to me. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

  I put it in my pocketbook, the safest place.

  At the end of the day, I made Nellie leave with me through the main entrance on Fourth Avenue to avoid the workers’ door on Twenty-fifth Street. I insisted that she walk around the showroom to see the lamps lit.

  “You’ve had something to do with many of these.”

  Her eyes sparkled as she looked. “Ain’t nothing in life so sweet as seeing those flowers all lit up in glass. You can see them bloom summer or winter.”

  “Just remember that.”

  She scowled at the laburnum lamp. “Mighty hard, that one. All those tiny yellow pieces with hardly a difference between ’em, and all those ins and outs of the shade.” She stepped over to another table. “Trumpet vine was my favorite for a while, but now I like the iris lantern better. Sort of Japanese, I’m guessing.”

  She lingered longest at the landscape lamp.

  “Does that one mean something to you?” I asked.

  “The landscape week. Patrick all akilter, proud and pissed.”

  Outside, Nellie said, “Whatever you have in mind, I can’t do it. Patrick would be fightin’ mad. This time, it would last. He might even throw me over.”

  “So mad that he would hit you?”

  She tipped her head to one side, squinting with her whole face. “I don’t know if he has that in him. Maybe. Irishmen are quick with the fist.”

  “If he does, he’s not worth your love.” I shook her arm. “Tell me you agree.”

  “I can’t.” It came out as a high squeak.

  “Are you sorry you told me about the strike?”

  “Nay.”

  At Madison Square Park I positioned myself facing the magnolia tree, so the girls in front of me would see the Flatiron Building behind me as a mere façade without stability. Julia and Olga had never seen it. Their astonishment unleashed a salvo of high-speed Polish. The building provided the right atmosphere that something monumental was about to take place.

  I picked up a fallen magnolia petal and felt its cushiony surface. We had no cushion to fall back on if we weren’t unanimous. It was crucial to time the vote exactly at the peak of commitment.

  Carrie counted heads. “Twenty-seven, including you.”

  “This building started as an idea before it took form in steel and stone,” I said, loud enough so all could hear. “An idea of beauty and service and stability. There were some who said it couldn’t be built. Others said it would topple in a strong wind. It only looks frail from one perspective, which is deceiving. This building grew just as our department has grown and built its strength, and you as individuals have grown, building your skills and your characters. A strong wind is gathering to blow down our little department, but it cannot, since our department was founded on beauty and service too. We have only to prove its stability.

  “I’ll start with a question. Since the men came into our studio and took our windows, how many new window commissions have we had from the management, not counting Miss Northrop’s?”

  They looked around at one another, trying to think of any.

  “Nary a one,” said Mary.

  “Right. Not a single one. How many new window commissions do you think we’ll get from Mr. Thomas next month?”

  “Nary a one,” said Mary.

  “Or the month after?”

  “None,” Anna said.

  Good. By their serious looks, the hard truth was dawning, at least on some.

  “I’m sure we’re all grateful to Miss Northrop for supplying us with noncommissioned window designs. How long can we expect that The Powers will let us keep making windows that may or may not sell in the showroom? If there is any lag in sales, one by one you will be let go. Would any of you like to be the one to choose who will be the first to go? The second? The third?”

  More sideways glances.

  “Today I’m asking you to make a decision, and in order to do that, you need to know one thing. It was at the direction of the Glaziers and Glass Cutters’ Union that those ten men came into our studio and took the windows that were rightfully ours. Don’t be mistaken. We don’t just have those ten men against us. Nor do we only have Tiffany’s two hundred male glass artisans against us. We have two hundred plus a strong union of more than a thousand members throughout the city, if it comes to that.”

  Murmurs all around. Scowls. Eyes narrowed. Mouths agape.

  “Why did they start this?” I asked. “Jealousy and fear, but it’s a false fear, because there’s enough work to go around. So it must be something else too.”

  “It’s because we’re women,” Theresa said, scowling.

  “I’ve been informed that while their immediate objective was to gain back all window work because they feel threatened by us, they have a long-range plan—to take our lampshades from us too.”

  Now the murmurs turned to shock and angry protests.

  “If that happens, what would we do?” asked Theresa. “Just mosaics?”

  “A few of you might be held on to do mosaics. Only two teams do mosaics at the moment. But this is not a case of mosaicists against leaded-glass workers within our department. It’s a case of—”

  “Men against women,” Theresa blurted.

  Her audacity was just what I needed.

  I raised my voice again. “The union that directed that action does not recognize our existence as capable artisans of the craft. They refuse us membership. If the union won’t let us in, we’ll have to act with the strength of a union of our own. We have to have a unity of spirits, and we have to have it overnight. A unified front, strong enough not to buckle under the intimidation of men. We are not frail creatures easily toppled any more than this building is.” I gave it a backhanded wave. “We only have to p
rove our worth. You have proved yourselves in the studio by doing six beautiful landscape windows in one week, an astonishing feat. The men hated our competence then, and that hate has festered. Now you have to prove your worth on the street, for all of New York to see.”

  “They’ll call us scabs,” Nellie wailed.

  “Then they’ll be making a mistake. Scabs are hired to break a strike by taking the strikers’ jobs so the company can keep functioning. We’re just walking to our own jobs like every other morning, only we’re doing it together. What we have here is the possibility of our whole department being shut down, and all of us on the streets anyway, looking for work.

  “I have it on good authority that tomorrow there will be a picket line on Fourth Avenue and on Twenty-fifth Street. In order for you to get to work, you will have to cross that line, wedging your way between them. Don’t deceive yourselves. They will not be polite. You will be jeered. You may even be touched. Think of how they treated Miss Judd and Mary in the studio.”

  “And Nellie and me,” Theresa added.

  A new wave of shock ripped through the group in whispers and worried looks.

  “Their intention is to frighten you so you’ll turn back when you see them and not come to work at all. Ever. They think they can usurp our positions by bullying us, the male action of last resort, but nothing except our own fear of action can remove us from our rightful position.”

  I gave them a few moments to talk among themselves.

  “How many of you have fathers who are in a union?”

  Half a dozen hands went up, unfortunately not Nellie’s.

  “Talk to them tonight. They’ll tell you about the power of group action. I propose that we meet at the south side of Gramercy Park at nine o’clock.”

  “We’ll be late for work,” wailed Miss Precise-and-Punctual Judd.

  “That’s intentional. We want everyone else there before us. We want the men on the picket line and The Powers That Be to notice that we’re not there, and wonder. We want Mr. Thomas and Mr. Platt and Mr. Tiffany to get nervous. Then we will walk there together, not strolling along the sidewalk as if we’re going on a shopping trip. We’ll walk abreast up Fourth Avenue, the street of art and commerce. We’ll walk out in the street and through the picket line, to our legitimate jobs. Walk together to preserve what you’ve established here, what skills you have developed.”