Clara Fraser papers, 1905-1998

Clara Fraser was born Clara Doris Goodman in Los Angeles on March 12, 1923 to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Samuel and Emma Goodman. Her father was an anarchist and her mother worked in the garment industry. She grew up in a multi-racial neighborhood, the East Side ghetto of Los Angeles, which Fraser described as a very poor, but highly political environment. While in junior high school in the 1930s, Clara joined the Young People’s Socialist League, prompted by the despair of the Great Depression. In 1939 to 1945, Fraser attended UCLA and graduated with degrees in literature, education, and drama. She then joined the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in 1945. After marrying at the age of 18, she and her first husband, Frank Krasnowsky, moved to Chicago. They then moved to Seattle to organize a Socialist Workers Party during the post-war era. Working as an assembly line electrician at Boeing, Fraser participated in the Boeing Strike of 1948. During the 1950s and 1960s, Fraser was very active in labor socialist politics. She worked vigorously to end racial segregation and the Vietnam War. She also supported women’s rights. In 1966 when the Seattle branch of the Socialist Workers Party left the organization, Fraser helped form the Freedom Socialist Party. Fraser and other feminists began a Free University of Seattle class titled "Marx and the Women's Question" which was the beginning of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Washington. Soon after, she joined the original Seattle Opportunities Industrialization Center (SOIC) and CEP, the job training arms of the anti-poverty program. She became a consultant on feminism and race relations for many public agencies. In 1967, Fraser, along with Gloria Martin and the young women of the New Left, founded Radical Women. Radical Women worked with and supported African American anti-poverty programs, Native American fishing rights, and Asian American protests for low-income housing.

After being fired from SOIC, Seattle City Light hired Fraser in 1973 as an education coordinator of the Electrical Trades Trainee Program for women. On July 11, 1975, Seattle City Light fired her, claiming that her dismissal was due to budgetary cuts. The Seattle Department of Human Rights, directed under Vivian L. Caver, a black woman civil rights and political activist, found that Fraser was discriminated because of her public affiliation with the Feminist Coordinating Council, Radical Women, and the Freedom Socialist Party. When the workers of Seattle City Light rose up against Superintendent Gordon Vickery, director of the agency, in 1974, Fraser was the leading critic and spokesperson for the massive employee walkout. She then became involved with a recall campaign against Mayor Wes Uhlman.

A legendary case not only in Seattle but across the nation, Fraser garnered broad support from local and national labor, feminist, gay, and labor unions, women’s groups, the LGBT community, and minority groups including the Black Panther Party chapters in Los Angeles and Seattle, the Native American Rights Advocate, and the Asian Law Association. In 1981, the court ruled in favor of Fraser, upholding protection for employees against sex and political discrimination. Seattle City Light was ordered to award her $135,265.00 in back pay, damages, and interests, reinstatement of her retirement account, social security contributions, and restoration of sick leave, dental and vacation benefits.

Fraser died on February 24, 1998 in Seattle, Washington.