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'Tough cookies' of the Great Depression

Broadcast Date: Dec. 17, 1991

In 1937, Léa Roback organized 5,000 striking female textile workers in Quebec. This spirited move came from experience. In Germany, Roback had fought the rise of Nazism as a member of the Communist Party. Berlin for Roback was a land of hunger and political instability. And when she moved to Montreal in 1932, she says conditions were only nominally better.

In this CBC Radio clip Roback recalls a climate of unemployment in Canada, and praises the "tough cookies" that went out on strike with her in the middle of the Depression.

'Tough cookies' of the Great Depression

• Léa Roback was born in Montreal in 1903 to a family of Polish Jewish immigrants. She credits her family for her strong belief in fighting back against workplace injustices.
• Roback went abroad when she was in her twenties, to New York, France and Germany. She joined her brother in Berlin where he was going to school for medicine. Roback was studying art, history and literature.

• After moving back from Berlin in 1935, Roback became the manager for Montreal's first Marxist bookstore. Also that year, she organized Fred Rose's election campaign. Rose was the first Communist member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons.
• Roback has a long history of fighting for women's rights in Canada. In 1936, Roback lobbied with Thérèse Casgrain for the right to the women's vote in Canada.

• Also in 1936, Roback was hired by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). At the time, women in the industry worked 60 hours a week without overtime pay.
• In 1993, the Léa Roback Foundation was established to promote access to education for women.
• Roback died in 2000 from injuries she sustained after falling down stairs at a retirement home.

'Tough cookies' of the Great Depression

Medium: Radio

Program: Gabereau

Broadcast Date: Dec. 17, 1991

Guest(s): Léa Roback

Host: Bill Richardson

Duration: 7:21

Event date: 1937

Last updated:
May 1, 2008