Forced to emigrate from their native Poland before World War I, Berta Margoulies and her family eventually settled in New York in 1921. Along with William Zorach, Margoulies became a charter member of the Sculptors Guild, a progressive organization established to support artists producing work “for the people” during the Great Depression. Although the laborers’ signs in this sculpture are blank, Margoulies uses the medium to formulate a powerful statement of united purpose—evoking themes of race, class, and social struggle.