Angela Bambace, first woman elected Vice President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) - previously an all-male leadership Executive Board for #WomensHistoryMonth. Angela Bambace defied social expectations to lead a labor union—organizing women’s marches, strikes, and protests to improve working conditions, rights and pay in order “to build a better world, a better place for everybody.”

Angela Bambace (1898-1975) was born in Santos, #Brazil, to Giuseppina Calabrese and Antonio Bambace, immigrants from Leonforte, #Sicily and Cannitello, #Calabria. The family immigrated to New York City in 1901 and settled in #EastHarlem. As a teenager, Angela and her sister Marie followed their mother into garment work, like most Italian immigrant women in New York City.

Bambace first became a member of the Italian Waist and Dressmakers' Local 89 in 1917 and served as a key organizer in the dressmakers' strike of 1919. She also joined the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in their neighborhood and became a union member, organizer, staff member, and officer of the #ILGWU.

In the early 1930s, the ILGWU sent Bambace to organize garment workers in #Baltimore. This temporary position became permanent in 1936 and by 1942, she was appointed the manager of the newly created Maryland-Virginia district of the ILGWU. In 1956, she became the first woman elected #VicePresident of the ILGWU and a member of the General Executive Board.

Bambace retired from the ILGWU in 1972 and died from cancer in Baltimore in 1975.