THE GEORGE MEANY MEMORIAL
AFL-CIO ARCHIVE at the University of Maryland
With well-practiced care, a union construction worker makes his way across a metropolitan job site.
W
ITH MATERIALS that fill six miles of shelving, the George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archive is the largest such donation to the University Libraries and provides an invaluable resource to scholars. Complementing other labor-related collections in our libraries, the archive establishes the university as a top archival repository for labor history in North America. These collections serve not only as the historical record of the venerable labor organization, but also as a gateway to understanding our shared history. Approximately 40 million documents and other materials will help researchers better understand pivotal social movements in this country, including those to gain rights for women, children and minorities.
MARYLAND has long played a vital role in the American labor movement and historians, sociologists, and political scientists working at our state’s flagship campus have been prominent scholars of that movement. The university’s considerable talent as well as its distinguished tradition of labor studies provide a first rate and world class environment in which the AFL-CIO’s collections can be used to their fullest. — Martin O’Malley, 2012 Governor of Maryland
1
SAMUEL GOMPERS AND THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AFTER immigrating with his family to
the United States in 1863, Samuel Gompers worked as a cigarmaker and joined the Cigar Makers’ International Union, Local 15 in New York City. Gompers later founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) serving as president for 37 years, from 1886 to 1924, and is known as the father of the modern labor movement.
2
THE SAMUEL GOMPERS PAPERS constitute a remarkable achievement; by demonstrating the central role played by working people and the labor movement they built, it has helped reframe our understanding of U.S. history.
— Richard N. Price and Philip M. Soergel
Professors and Chairs, UMD Department of History
Photo: Samuel Gompers (center) in the antechamber of Governor Arthur Yager’s office, Puerto Rico, March 26, 1914. Left: American Federation of Labor (AFL) charter application from the United Labor League of Philadelphia and Vicinity, March 22, 1896. Below: Cigar box with color portrait of Samuel Gompers. Archives of the Cigar Makers’ International Union, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.
3
Two boys work in dangerous conditions in a textile mill, ca 1900.
4
CHILD LABOR THE AFL and its president
Samuel Gompers battled against child labor in the early 20th century. American laborers were displaced by child workers at an alarming rate as industries looked for ways to lower wages in even the most dangerous of labor conditions. After multiple legislative battles, the U.S. Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, placing restrictions on child labor in general.
Members of the Women’s Trade Union League of New York picket against child labor and to support the eight hour day, ca 1909.
5
STATE “RIGHT TO WORK” laws have made a comeback in the ongoing attempt to weaken the labor movement, but this is a play we have seen before and defeated. In 1958, five such ballot efforts were defeated under a national campaign led by Eleanor Roosevelt. She wrote in the American Federationist that she opposed such laws because the “real aim is to destroy American labor.” We have this valuable historical context because of the Meany Memorial Archives. — Brigid O’Farrell, Independent Scholar
6
Labor union rally opposing the Taft-Hartley Bill, Madison Square Garden, 1947
TAFT-HARTLEY ACT THE 1947 Taft-Hartley Act
placed restrictions on labor unions that drastically reduced their ability to collectively bargain and collect dues from their members by effectively eliminating the closed shop. In a speech given shortly after it passed, George Meany declared that the law “completely demolishes the natural, organic development which is collective bargaining, and substitutes, instead, what at best is paternalistic statism, and at worst, out and out dictatorship.�
7
GEORGE MEANY AND THE AFL-CIO GEORGE MEANY began
his union experience as an apprentice plumber in 1910. Meany served in several leadership positions in the AFL before being elected its president in 1952. He was a key player in the negotiations for a merger between the AFL and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in December 1955, initially promoted by President Roosevelt in 1939.
8
Above: George Meany. Left: George Meany and CIO president Walter Reuther clasp hands at the AFL-CIO merger convention in New York City on December 5, 1955. Photograph by Frank Alexander. 9
CIVIL RIGHTS WHILE UNION LEADERS feared potential conflict between
protecting union interests and civil rights for people of color, leaders within the civil rights movement were ardent supporters of labor rights as a civil rights issue. The two groups frequently worked together to achieve their goals. “The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., shortly before his assassination in 1968. “I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one, with no thought to the separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions.” 10
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. walks an International Chemical Workers Union (ICWU) picket line (1964).
THE MEANY ARCHIVES are an invaluable resource for both researchers and unionists. In 1958, Colorado and California unionists reached out to local civil rights organizations. That was exactly the kind of alliance that stopped the repeal of labor rights. There is still much the present day labor movement can learn from its past.
— Dr. Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
Cambridge University Paul Mellon Fellow of American History
11
12
WORKING WOMEN WOMEN had long been engaged in workers’ rights
through “ladies auxiliaries” where they supported their union-working husbands or as workers themselves in occupations such as the garment industry. During World War II, however, women were encouraged to work in jobs previously held by men. This massive entry into the workforce gave way to the rise of the feminist movement as the gender barrier to male-dominated jobs could no longer be argued. Today women are a driving force within America’s labor unions and are predicted by labor scholars to outnumber men in labor unions within the next 10 years.
Jean Williams, a West Virginia native, outside Armco Mine entrance (1980). Williams worked five years in the coal mines of her home state. Photograph by Martha Tabor.
I am excited at the possibility of utilizing the archives both for my own research and for my students working in the field of labor studies.
— Seung-Kyung Kim
Professor and Chair Department of Women’s Studies
13
THROUGHOUT American history, immigrants have been
essential to farming and industrial labor. Immigrants experienced rapid growth in American labor in the aftermath of World War II, as the United States began allowing temporary workers from Mexico to work the fields. These workers were needed to replace Americans who had joined the war effort. After the war, many of these workers began organizing across the country, demanding better work conditions and the ability to unionize. Today, immigrants have become an important life-blood to unions, as they provide a fresh energetic membership base.Â
14
First grapes (from California’s Coachella Valley) with the union label of the United Farm Workers reach the New York market and produce a V for Victory reaction (1970).
15
16
THE MEANY ARCHIVES collected records about all the member unions that have ever been in the American Federation of Labor, including many that were short-lived and obscure. Without those files, I fear that it would be utterly impossible for anyone to understand what organizations constituted the AFL in its early years, let alone what the lives of their members were ever like.
— Jonathan Rees, Professor of History
Colorado State University, Pueblo
ORGANIZATIONS WITH COLLECTIONS & RECORDS IN THE GEORGE MEANY MEMORIAL AFL- CIO ARCHIVE l AFL-CIO Trade Departments: Building and Construction Trades Department
Metal Trades Department
Maritime Trade Department
Department for Professional Employees
Union Labor and Services Trades Department
Transportation Trades Department
l American Center for International Labor Solidarity l George Meany Center for Labor Studies: National Labor College l Working for America Institute
Detail from early labor union banner, ca. 1890
www.lib.umd.edu For questions related to use and access of the archives, call 301-405-9212. For information about how to make a contribution to support the AFL-CIO Archive or to donate a related collection, call (301) 314-5674.