Biography
Marcia Silver was a May’s Department Store striker in Brooklyn and a member of the retail-clerks union. The strike began after three employees were dismissed for joining the union; the workers demanded recognition, higher pay and shorter hours. Silver was one of five strikers held on conspiracy charges under $1,000 bail in 1935. Her alleged offense was telling a nonstriking employee that the union would picket her home. Kings County District Attorney William Geoghan pursued the prosecution under New York’s nineteenth-century conspiracy law. Labor organizations challenged the case as an attack on the right to strike.
Page 5 reproduces Israel Amter’s submission to Governor Lehman during the Geoghan ouster hearing, naming Pearl Edison, Marcia Silver and Monaklait (as printed) as May’s department-store strikers prosecuted under an old conspiracy statute. It alleges anti-union hostility and points to shared offices of store attorney Abraham Kartzman and slot-machine operator Leo P. Byk. These are attributed complaints in the ouster proceeding, not a new conviction, arrest or proven bribery finding; Monaklait is preserved as a contextual variant of Monakian.
