Sophie Melvin Gerson

Sophie Melvin Gerson (1910 – March 20, 2006) was a Jewish labor organizer and socialist involved in early 20th-century textile union activism.

Biography Melvin was born in the shtetl of Dzygivka, in what is now Ukraine, the second youngest of seven children. Her family fled antisemitic pogroms and poverty, arriving in the US in 1922. They settled in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.

As a labor organizer, Melvin was known for her involvement in the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, North Carolina, during which she was arrested at age 19. She has been described as a lifelong fighter for peace, justice, and socialism.

Melvin married journalist and Communist Party leader Simon W. Gerson in 1932. The couple had two children.

In 1953, after Si Gerson was acquitted of Smith Act charges, Leonard P. Moore filed charges against Sophie Melvin on behalf of the federal government. The aim was to de-naturalize Melvin so that she and her family would be forced to leave the US. She was indicted under the Smith Act and Walter-McCarran Act. She was acquitted of Smith Act charges.

Legacy Melvin and Gerson's papers were donated to the Tamiment Library after their deaths.