[1] Serber and her family were Jewish, and persecuted in Russia,[2] so they emigrated to the United States, settling in Lower East Side of New York City in 1891, and seventeen-year-old Theresa went to work as a cloakmaker in a garment factory.

expresses her frustration with this state of affairs: For the workingwoman of today finds herself between two fires—on the one hand, she faces the capitalist class, her bitterest enemy; it foresees a far-reaching danger in her emancipation and with all the ability of its money power tries to resist her eventual advent into the civilized world.

In her anguish the workingwoman turns towards her brothers in the hope to find a strong support in their midst, but she is doomed to be disillusioned, for they discourage her activity and are utterly listless towards the outcome of her struggle.

She served as a delegate to several conventions, campaigned, wrote pamphlets, and, like Rose Pastor Stokes, helped raise awareness of immigrant women's concerns.

[9] She also established an annual National Woman's Day, starting on February 28, 1909, which was observed by several European socialist parties as well as the SPA.

[11] In 1909, she worked closely with the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) to support the New York shirtwaist strike with publicity and fundraising.

Over time she grows closer to them and becomes increasingly aware of the need to win the ballot as well as the strike, and of the need for more solidarity between male and female workers.

[12] After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire the following year, the book garnered public attention and helped trigger legislative reforms.

[14] During a speaking tour of the American South in 1911, Malkiel was appalled to learn that white socialists were practicing racial segregation.

At one event in Mississippi she gave a speech in the pouring rain to a group of dues-paying African-American socialists who were denied entry to the local meeting hall.

Her scathing report in the New York Call created a stir:[15] Lord preserve us from this kind of Socialists....We must not preach Socialism to the negroes because the white workingmen are foolish enough to allow their masters to arouse their prejudices against their fellow workers in order to keep them divided so as to play off one against the other.