After many successful strikes, Clara Lemlich was blacklisted from New York Garment Shops. Still wanting to make a difference, Lemlich began to aid in the suffrage movement, helping to found the Wage Earners League for Woman Suffrage. She also helped establish the United Council of Working-Class Housewives, and the United Council of Working-Class Women, which soon became the Progressive Women’s Councils. She continued to speak out by leading rent strikes, speaking against eviction, boycotting increasingly-expensive foods, and they marched on Washington. A chain of protests broke out across other cities in the country because of Lemlich’s actions.
At the age of 81, Clara Lemlich still found reasons to make change in her community. In the Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles, she convinced the owners to follow a boycott against grape and lettuce products with the United Farm Workers.
Clara Lemlich died at the Jewish home on July 12, 1982. She was 96 years old.
Footage of a picket line during a strike from British Pathe's, The Big Strike.