Joseph Barondess (1863-1928) was a labor leader and political figure in New York City's Lower East Side Jewish community in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Known as the "King of the Cloakmakers", whose union he led, he carried himself like an actor, a career he had tried but failed at before he became a garment worker and union leader. In his heyday he was in great demand at public celebrations of all sorts; as one observer of the time noted, "It was almost a pleasure to die, knowing that Barondess would arrange the rites."

He was born in Kamenetz Podolsk , Russia and came to the United States in 1885. After trying out with the Romanian Opera Company in New York, he went to work in the garment trade. Three years later Barondess helped found the Cloakmakers' Union. He also studied law for a time at New York University, but never finished his studies.

Barondess feuded with the Socialist Labor Party, which criticized him relentlessly. He formed a brief alliance with anarchists in the labor movement, but fell out with them as well. He eventually forged warmer relations with those socialists who left the SLP to form the Socialist Party.

His star faded somewhat after his conviction for extortion in connection with a cloakmakers' strike in 1891, in which he was accused of accepting a check for one hundred dollars from an employer who had violated his collective bargaining agreement with the union. The accusation was probably false; the union did not have its own checking account at the time, so any payment would have had to go through the account of an individual who did. After being convicted, Barondess jumped bail to flee to Canada, returning to serve a shortened sentence only after union leaders pleaded for him to do so.

He eventually recovered his former popularity, however, presiding at the conference at which the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was founded in 1900, helping to organize the Hebrew Actors' Union, a union of actors from the Yiddish theater, running unsuccessfully for Congress as a socialist in 1904, later becoming a Zionist, then serving on New York City's Board of Education in 1911. Even when he held no particular office Barondess served as the advocate for whoever sought his help, whether petitioning for small favors or protesting mistreatment by the authorities.

By the time of his death in 1928, however, he no longer had any active role in either the labor movement or politics. He was remebered fondly as a pioneer in the union movement; even the Communist paper Freiheit gave him a respectful obituary. One of the mourners in attendance at his funeral reportedly stated that it would have been a more impressive service if Barondess had been there to deliver the eulogy.

Sources

• Howe, Irving, World of Our Fathers, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. ISBN 0151463530.

• Epstein, Melech, Profiles of eleven; profiles of eleven men who guided the destiny of an immigrant society and stimulated social consciousness among the American people, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.