Biography
Bertha Long was arrested during a New York relief-station demonstration, according to the July 17, 1934 retrospective women’s column. Both Raffe and Long received ten-day suspended sentences. The article says police dragged the nearly full-term pregnant Raffe several blocks and later reports her infant stillborn; the causal claim is the columnist’s account, not an independent medical finding. The May 29, 1934 report dates the relief-station arrest to May 22, 1934. The exact final release day and actual pretrial custody remain unknown. The suspended ten days is not time served. Daily Worker, July 17, 1934, page 4. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n170-jul-17-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The Daily Worker of May 29, 1934 reports that Victoria Raffe (printed Raffee as well as Raffe) and Bertha Long were arrested on May 22 during a protest against stopped relief at the Spring and Elizabeth Streets relief station in New York. This supplies the arrest day previously unresolved by the July 17 retrospective already cited here. The later report of ten-day suspended sentences remains separate from actual time confined.
The May report distinguishes Long’s initial detention and release at the protest from her immediate rearrest while standing across from a nearby jail after following the crowd. Her earlier, undated relief-related arrest and release on probation are a separate episode; they are not combined with the May 22 detention. Neither the first release nor the announced court hearing establishes the final discharge day or total custody.
