Beyond Trade Unions: Labor Activism among Women Workers at the Újpest Jute Factory in the 1900s through the Lens of the Social Democratic Press and Lajos Kassák’s Novel, The Life of a Man

Abstract The article examines the labor activism of women workers at the Újpest jute factory in pre-1914 Hungary, focusing on the organizing efforts and strikes led by a young worker, Klára Balázs, and a locksmith and future author, Lajos Kassák. It situates the events within the broader history of the labor movement, exploring the tensions between workers in leading sectors and marginalized groups. To better situate Kassák’s and Balázs’s work in its historical context, the article also examines the major jute factory strikes (1896, 1903) leading up to the stoppages they spearheaded in 1908, explaining how Social Democratic discourses often oversimplified these strikes and sidelined women’s active roles in grassroots organizing. At the same time, instead of exclusively addressing the everyday sexism inscribed in the sources, the article places the events within the broader trends of late-19th-century industrialization in the region, highlighting some of the main structural conditions that prevented women workers from achieving long-term organizing successes in the factory. Through a critical reading of primary sources, including Kassák’s semi-autobiographical novel, Egy ember élete and Social Democratic news reports, the article contextualizes these struggles in the pre-First World War movement dynamics of Budapest’s outskirts, while also offering a structuralist account of the economic factors that influenced the successes and failures of the workers’ activism. This analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of early-20th-century labor struggles, offering insights into the intersections of gender, class, and labor activism in the context of industrialization and social change in Eastern Europe.