Collections at the Labor Archives and Research Center with a 1920s‑1930s emphasis:

 

I. ARCHIVAL AND MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

 

Bay Area Typographical Union, Local 21

Records, 1842 ‑ 1985, predominantly 1906 ‑ 1980.  39.5 cubic feet and 43 volumes. 

Minutes; newsletters; membership cards; committee, financial and benefit records; office correspondence; ribbons.

Minutes of the San Francisco and San Mateo locals as well as  several histories of San Francisco Local 21 provide a  picture of a skilled craft union as it weathered the era of  the AAmerican Plan@ and the Great Depression.

 

Boilermaker's Union, Local Lodge 6

Records, 1919 ‑ 1985, predominantly 1938 ‑ 1950.  4 cubic feet.

Although the bulk of the records are from 1938‑1950, minutes of Lodge 6 begin in 1929 and provide an understanding of the union=s activities prior to World War II.  

 

Bookbinders and Bindery Women's Union, Local 31‑125

Records, 1902 ‑ 1970.  5 cubic feet, predominantly bound volumes, and 1 oversize

volume. 

The minutes span the 1920‑ 1939 time period.  This is a union of skilled craft workers.

 

Brown, Archie (1911‑1990).  Member of the Communist Party USA in  California and official of Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's  Union, Local 10

Papers, 1935 ‑ 1938.  .5 cubic feet.

The collection includes a xeroxed set of letters from Archie Brown to his wife Esther (Hon) Brown while he was a member of the Spanish Civil War Abraham Lincoln Brigade and print materials pertaining to the San Francisco Waterfront, including the Waterfront Worker, May 1934 ‑ March 1936.

 

California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of   Statistics and Research

     Records, 1913 ‑ 1984.  39 cubic feet

Periodicals, pamphlets, books, government reports and  assorted materials collected by the Divisions in their library of stand‑up files.  The collection is United States in scope, with many of the pamphlets originating from  agencies in the U.S. Department of Labor and the WPA.       There is a large collection on women=s work beginning in 1921.  Another subject well represented is the Great Depression. Pamphlets on the  New Deal  and from the WPA           cover the subjects of agriculture, migratory workers, unemployment, relief programs, and job training.  The  enactment of unemployment insurance is documented along with many alternative proposals considered in the 1930s.  Material on occupational safety dates from 1922 and includes pamphlets on safety for youths and women. 

 

 

 

 

California Labor Federation, AFL‑CIO

          Records, 1892 ‑ 1980s.   24 cubic feet and oversize.

          Subject files from the California Labor Federation  library, photographs and posters.  Material from the 1930s includes files on cannery workers; a Salinas strike of agricultural workers, including involvement of the Filipino Labor Union, 1936 and 1937; Communism; the Anti-picketing ballot measure of 1938; the Westwood Lumber Strike of 1938-1939; Women and Equal Pay, 1938-1979; U.S. Women=s Bureau publications; and gathered items on the history of the San Francisco Hotel Stirke of 1937.

 

Civil Service Association of San Francisco

Records, 1907 ‑ 1975.  4 cubic feet.

Minutes (bound volumes), clippings (scrapbooks), resolutions.

Minutes cover 1922‑1938.  Box 2    

 

Department Store Employees Union, Local 1100

Records, 1937 ‑ 1981, predominantly 1937 ‑ 1940.  .5 cubic feet.

Scrapbook with news‑clippings, strike bulletins, flyers, etc. detail the organizing of Local 1100 and the 1938 San Francisco Department Store Strike, which involved 27 major department stores in the city.  See also oral histories - Marion Sills, Department Store Employees 1100.

 

Employer Associations

Records, c. 1947 .5 cubic feet

Files on West Coast business management associations gathered by the San Francisco Employers Council Research Department on behalf of Professor Sumner Slichter of Harvard University in preparation for his late 1940's study of labor relations on the Pacific Coast .  Many of the organizations that responded included in their materials a  requested historical review of their origins and summary of peak periods of activity.  A significant number of  these associations came into being as a result of the NRA codes/Wagner Act of the 1930s.  Others, such as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Los Angeles,( which originated in the 1896), detail their efforts to crush labor unions in the 1920s and 1930s. 

 

Federal Writers Project Records, 1936  110 pages.  Located in M.S. and small collections.  Unpublished manuscript: AMaterial Gathered on the Federal Writers Project. San Francisco. As a Sample for a Project of Creative Work@.

 

Gilb, Corinne, creator of the Regional Cultural History Project, fore-runner of the Regional Oral History Project

Papers. 6 cubic feet.

Collection includes Corinne Gilb=s typescript copies of 27 oral history interviews conducted in the 1950s with leading individuals in the area of labor relations, including union officials, employers, employer association officials and  members of the legal profession.

 

 

 

Hardy, George, President of the Service Employees International Union

Papers.  .5 cubic feet.

Several files in this collection contain correspondence, 1935 - 1951 relating to the George Scalise case.  Scalise was President of the Service Employees International Union (then known as the BSEIU) until 1940, when he was arrested for extortion and income tax evasion.  George Hardy and his father, APop@ Hardy took leading roles in fighting this corruption within the union.

 

Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 2, San Francisco

            Records, 1899 - 1993.  37 cubic feet.

Predominately the files of predecessor unions Waiters Local 30, Waitresses Local                           48, Cooks Local 44, Bartenders Local 41, Miscellaneous Workers Local 110, Hotel                        Service Workers Local 283, and  Diningroom Employees Local 9 which merged to                         become HERE Local 2 in October 1975.  The bulk of the material comes from Waiters                   Local 30, the largest of the predecessor unions.  Records include membership rosters, a                  run of the Mixer and Server from 1900 - 1929(publication of the International), minutes, elections  records, correspondence, agreements, constitutions, and arbitrations.  Minutes of Waiters Local 30 membership meetings run through the 1920s and 1930s, as do Cooks Local 44.  Waitress Local 48 minutes are only available from 1936 forward.

 

Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley

          Records, 1888 to 1958, bulk: 1934‑1958.  10 cubic feet.

Arbitration records, records of two employer associations, the Industrial Association of San Francisco and the Waterfront Employers Association, materials from the (U.S.) Pacific Coast Maritime Industry Board during World War II, studies by the Institute For Science and Labor in Japan,1931‑1932, and a strikes series, 1934‑1949, including materials on the 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike by the Fruit and Vegetable Workers Union of California, Local 18211 and on the San Francisco 1934 Maritime Strike.

 

Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley, Arbitration Collection

Records, 1925 ‑ 1950.  24 cubic feet.

Transferred collection (formerly held by the Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California Berkeley) of case files donated by leading labor arbitrators.  The Labor Archives has retained arbitration relevant to industrial relations in Northern California. 

Two industries, the west coast longshore industry and the San Francisco hotel industry, are especially well represented.  The collection includes the full transcript of the  National Longshore Board hearings on the Pacific Coast Maritime Strike and San Francisco General Strike of 1934.

 

International Ladies Garment Workers Union, San Francisco Joint Board

Records, 1931‑1969.  18 cubic feet

Includes material on organizing women garment workers in Chinatown and the National Dollar Store Strike of 1938.  Correspondence between Jennie Matyas and Israel Feinberg discuss the trials and tribulations of an organizer in the field.

 

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Order of Repeat­ermen and Toll

  Testboardmen, (IBEW,) Local 1011

Records, 1919 - 1993, predominantly 1938 - 1947.  16 cubic feet.

Minutes, correspondence, financial records, memos, shop and union papers, radio transcripts, arbitration hearings, grievances, contracts, government documents, teletypes, negotiations, contracts, and company literature including training and employee relations. Stored off-site at present.  Requires several days for delivery.

 

Knowles, Harper.  Head of the Subversive Activities Committee of the American Legion

Papers, 1909 - 1954.  3 cubic feet.

Material is in two series: the personal papers of Harper Knowles, 1901 - 1954, consisting of financial and household records; and the California Surveillance papers, uncover reports on the activities of labor organizations and organizations on the left, 1934-1940.

 

Leonard, Norman (b. 1914).  Labor attorney

Records, 1934 ‑ 1960.  192 cubic feet. 

California agriculture Food and Tobacco Workers of America/United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (FTA/UCAPAWA)case files, 1936‑ 1950 (a CIO union that attracted much attention first as one of the most quickly growing of the new CIO unions and latter as one of several unions expelled from the CIO during the 1950 anti‑communist Atrials.@, Pat Chambers Criminal Syndicalism case, 1936‑1937,Berkeley Anti‑Picketing law cases, 1936‑1939 (in FTA section)

 

Machinists  Lodge 68, International Association of Machinists  Lodge 68, San Francisco

Records, 1902 -  1980.  7 cubic feet.

Includes minutes of San Francisco-based Lodge 68 for the 1920s and 1930s. Lodge 68 was historically a militant union and the minutes reflect that orientation.

 

Maritime Federation of the Pacific

Records, 1935 ‑ 1942.  33.5 cubic feet and 2 volumes. 

Minutes, conventions, office files, correspondence, memorabilia.  AIn 1935 the International Longshoremen=s Association sought to unite West Coast maritime unions into a Maritime Federation of the Pacific, whose paper The Voice of the Federation, provided strong advocacy for Left causes.@Bob Cherny, Encyclopedia of American Left.  Includes Modesto Boys Defense materials.

 

Monoldi, Peo.  Industrial Workers of the World member

Papers, 1894‑1936.   1.25 cubic feet.

The bulk of the collection is print material, predominately from 1915 ‑ 1929.  The earliest item is the pamphlet,  The Pullman Strike,  by Rev. William H. Carwardine, 1894.  The most contemporary is the minutes of the Twenty‑Second Constitutional Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Chicago, Nov. 9‑16, 1936.  The papers include a small amount of 1925 correspondence and photographs documenting a Klu Klux Klan attack on IWW headquarters in San Pedro, California, 1924.

 

Pacific Coast Labor School

Records, 1935 ‑ 1941.  1 cubic foot (three bound volumes).

Yearbooks, reports and publications including: essays, plays, songbooks, and  bibliographies.

 

Pirjola, Kosti.  Industrial Workers of the World member

Papers, 1920‑1950.  8 cubic feet.

Predominately Finnish language publications.  Printed materials in English include IWW, Local 110, Oakland financial statements and flyers, newsletters from several IWW Marine Transport Workers locals; single issue of the Northern California Co‑Operator and a small run of the Survey Graphic.  Manuscript material consists largely of course work and notes for various extension classes.  Ephemera includes flyers, programs, bills and tickets to various East Bay cultural and political events, ca. 1933 ‑ 1950.

 

Retail Store Employees Union, Local 410R

Records, 1909 ‑ 1984.  17 cubic feet.

Constitution and bylaws, minutes of the membership and executive board, records of associated retail clerk organizations, financial ledgers and statements, membership documentation, and contract negotiation files.

 

San Francisco ‑ Oakland Mailers' Union, No. 18

           Records, 1901 ‑ 1988.  27 cubic feet.

Minutes, agreements, negotiations, arbitration records, financial records, membership records, correspondence, applications, payroll, chapel reports, office files, conventions, committee reports, and photographs. Presently stored off site - requires several days for delivery.

 

 Teamsters Local 70, Brotherhood of Teamsters, Auto Truck Drivers, Line Drivers, Car

   Haulers and Helpers, Local No. 70 of Alameda County  

Records, 1934 ‑ 1988.  3.5 cubic feet.

Conference proceedings, minutes, agreements and contracts, membership material, union button collection and several photographs.  Membership ledgers for Teamsters Local 515, Chauffeurs Union.

 

Teamsters Local 85, San Francisco

Records, 12 cubic feet.

Minutes of executive board meetings, 1910 - 1926 and general membership meetings, 1927 - 1972.  Financial ledgers, 1906 - 1961.  Unprocessed, location, Sutro stacks.

Minutes of the meetings cover any aspect of Teamster involvement in labor events of the 1920s and 1930s (example, discussion of the process of the 1934 maritime and general strike)

 as well as reports from other unions seeking their support on diverse

 

Urmy, William H. (1883 ‑ 1948).  Labor conciliator, State labor deputy‑commissioner,

  Secretary‑Treasurer of San Francisco Building Trades Council, vice‑president of California

  State Federation of Labor and the San Francisco Labor Council

Papers, 1908‑1948.  .25 cubic feet.

Correspondence, clippings, broadsides, pamphlets, song sheet and photograph.

 

Yoneda, Elaine Black (1906 ‑ 1988).  Labor activist, civil rights supporter 

Papers, 1900 ‑ 1991.  3.75 cubic feet.

Research material gathered by author Vivian McGuckin Raineri in the course of writing the biography, Red Angel: The Life and Times of Elaine Black Yoneda.  Papers of Elaine Black Yoneda, including correspondence from Manzanar, duplicates of FBI files, subject files regarding the San Francisco 1934 General Strike and Tom Mooney, a manuscript history of International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Auxiliary No. 16, transcripts of oral histories, and photographs of the Buchman and Yoneda families.

 

 

II. PRINT COLLECTIONS

 

BOUND SERIALS:

 

Including official newspapers of San Francisco Bay Area labor and building trades councils, organs of various maritime unions, and left‑wing newspapers from the West Coast.  Labor Archives holdings include runs of the following serials:

 

Contra Costa County Labor Journal 1920 ‑ 1970

East Bay Labor Journal 1923 ‑ 1937

Farmer Labor News 1923 ‑ 1924

Labor Herald CIO Northern California 1937 ‑ 1953

People=s World 1938‑1982  (Communist newspaper on the West Coast)

San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, Organized Labor 1903‑1988 on microfilm and bound

San Francisco Labor Council,  Labor Clarion 1902 ‑ 1948

Santa Barbara Union Labor News 1926 ‑ 1936

Santa Clara County Union Gazette 1931 ‑ 1970

Stockton Labor Journal 1924 ‑ 1970

Vallejo Labor Journal 1920s, 30s, 1955 ‑ 1970

Voice of the Federation, Official organ of the Maritime Federation, 1935 ‑ 1941

Western Worker 1932‑1935, 1937 (Communist newspaper on the West Coast)

 

LOOSE SERIALS:

Teamsters shop papers 1935 ‑ 1937 and 1946 ‑ 1951

  Originals and photostatic reproductions of issues of two rank‑and‑file San Francisco Bay           Area Teamster shop papers, Taxi Worker and Spokesman.

 

Note: dates given for bound and loose serials are bracket dates, we may not have a complete run of a given periodical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

III. PAMPHLET AND EPHEMERA COLLECTIONS:

 

Ephemera Collection

     1877 ‑ present.  54 cubic feet.

Pamphlets, newsclippings, journal articles, flyers covering a wide range of subjects.  Most items are 1950s and forward, with a few exceptions, example: John Steinbeck's 1938 pamphlet on migrant workers, Their Blood is Strong, gathered materials on Tom Mooney, unemployment in the 1930s and the Upton Sinclair AEPIC@ campaign.

 

Walton D. Phillips Pamphlet Collection

     1877 ‑ 1964.  1200 folders

     Collection of labor and radical pamphlets.

 

Paul Pinsky Pamphlet Collection

     1936 ‑ 1964.   308 folders

     Pamphlets on labor collected by former research director of the California CIO Council.

 

IV. AURAL AND GRAPHIC COLLECTIONS:

 

PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTIONS:           

 

Notable collections include the People's World newspaper subject files (guide available) with some Dorothea Lange prints; vintage prints of Otto Hagel and Hansel Mieth Hagel, many from the maritime industry; and the Fred Dummatzen album with photographs documenting work on the Golden Gate Bridge, 1935 - 1937.

 

ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION:

 

AFRO-AMERICANS IN SAN FRANCISCO PRIOR TO WORLD WAR II: Oral history project, includes interviews with twenty-seven African-American San Franciscans and photographs; sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco African-American Historical and Cultural Society and coordinated by Lynn Bonfield (includes interviews with A. P. Alberga, Eddie Alley, Freddie Archibald, Alma Thomas Brooks, Willie Brooks, Alfred Butler, Sadie Hackett Calbert, Josephine Foreman Cole, Bernice Clark Crawford, Kenneth Finis, Katherine Stewart Flippin, Benjamin Gordon, Elizabeth Fisher Gordon, Myrtle Thompson Hightower, Naomi Anderson Johnson, Sybil Sanford Lucas, Harry Lumsden, Toronto Cannaday Marshall, Augustine Williams Nurse, Johyne Beverly Osborne, Lillian Raymond, F. L. Ritchardson, Lora Toombs Scott, Ray Thompson, Roberta Scott Watson, Kline Wilson, and Helen Wilson); transcriptions only (located in LARC stacks, location 56).  Tapes located at San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

Interviews by Jesse Warr III, Diana Lackatanre, and Albert Broussard, 1976-1983.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes   

No. of Pages        

 

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS IN CALIFORNIA IN THE 1930S: Transcript of oral histories of nine male and female farm workers of the North Coast and Central Valley of California - white, Filipino and Mexican; reflects the nature of field and shed labor, the unions which organized these workers, and race issues of work; conducted by Joan L. Zoloth as her senior thesis for UC Santa Cruz in Nov. 1976; transcription only.

Interviews by Harvey Schwartz, 1997.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes   

No. of  Pages   122  

 

ROBERT S. ASH: (b. 1924) Secretary, Alameda County Central Labor Council, 1943-1967; delineates the history of the Alameda Labor Council; describes the general strike of 1934 -- he was a member of International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 1546; chronicles the Oakland general strike of 1946-1947 and conflict between East Bay Teamsters and the Alameda Labor Council during the 1940s; reflects on Governor Warren=s administration.

 

Interview conducted by Miriam Feingold Stein for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1970.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 176

 

GERMAIN BULCKE: (b. 1902) Born and raised in Belgium, he emigrated to Detroit in 1920 and a few years later moved to San Francisco and became a longshoreman.   He was active in the 1934 maritime and general strike, and served as an ILWU leader both in Local 10 and as an Int=l vice-president. In 1960 he was appointed Southern California Arbitrator for the longshore industry, a position he held until his retirement in 1966.

Interview conducted by Estolv Ethan Ward for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1983.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 230

 

C. L. DELLUMS: (b. 1900) Member and official of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925 and became its president in 1968, succeeding A. Philip Randolph.  Dellums was also a civil rights leader, active in the NAACP and as an early leader in the fight for fair employment.  During WWII, he led a March on Washington which led to Roosevelt=s commission on wartime fair employment.  Dellums was born in Texas, but in 1923 he moved to Oakland, CA where he lived until his death at 89 in 1989.

Interview conducted by Joyce Henderson for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1985 as part of the Earl Warren Oral History Project.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 159

 

DEPARTMENT STORE EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 1100: Seven-page transcript of an interview conducted at  Local 1100 40th Anniversary Luncheon in 1977; includes the remarks of five Local 1100 members, including Leona Graves, Marion Brown Sills, Johnny Blaiota, Ray Vetterlein, and ABill@..

 

CAROLINE DECKER GLADSTEIN: (1912-1992) District secretary, Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, and central figure in the agricultural strikes that swept across California in the early 1930s; secretary, Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, 1930s; spent three years in prison under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act, 1934-1937.

Interview conducted by Sue Cobble for the California Historical Society=s Women in the Trade Union Movement Project and the University of Michigan/Wayne State University oral history project, The Twentieth Century Trade Union Woman: Vehicle for Social Change,1977.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 78 

 

* JACK GOLDBERGER: (1905-1988) Business agent, Teamsters Local 921; worked as a Aroute man@ delivering newspapers throughout the Bay Area during the 1930s and 1940s; describes the Teamsters= split from the San Francisco Labor Council in the late 1950s, as well as his impressions of Teamsters leaders Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa and his five decades as a San Francisco Teamsters leader; synoptic index available.

Interview conducted by Adah Bakalinsky, 1987-1988.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   3     Release form   No     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages   34 

 

 

 

 

 

LOUIS GOLDBLATT: (b. 1910) Born and raised in the Bronx until 1928 when his family moved to Los Angeles.  A student activist at CCNY, UCLA and UC Berkeley.  He supported the 1934 longshore strike and later became a warehouseman and participated in the Amarch inland.@ Goldblatt was a CIO leader, then became ILWU Sec-Treas.  He provided leadership for organizing in Hawaii, early opposition to relocation of Japanese-Americans, ILWU - Teamster relations and the anti-left repression of the 1950s.  Tells of changes that came with the 1960s, 1970s, including internal problems with Bridges.  Narration includes commentary on politics, national and world conditions including early Communist membership, fascism, Israel, Vietnam, China, and the free speech movement.

Interview conducted by Estolv Ethan Ward for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1978 - 1979.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 1216 (in two volumes)

 

* GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE PROJECT: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Labor Archives received a grant from the California Council for the Humanities to conduct interviews with nine bridge workers, two wives of bridge workers, and two nurses who cared for workers hurt on the job: Martin Adams, Fred Brusati, Fred A. Divita, Sister Mary Zita Feliciano and Pat DeWeese (together), Evan C. ASlim@ Lambert, Alvina McIntyre and Mary Louise Vestnys (together), Glenn McIntrye, John Noren, John V. Urban, and Walter L. and Bert Vestnys (together); synoptic indexes available.

Interviews conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1987.  for oral histories

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   22     Release forms   No     Transcriptions in bold     

 

* TERRY GREEN: (b. 1920) Member, Local 6, ILWU, for thirty-four years; recalls student life at UC Berkeley and part-time waterfront work, 1938-1941; Left politics in East Bay, 1940s to early 1990s; serving as steward in Office and Professional Employees Union, CIO, 1945-1950; and activist career and work-life in Local 6, 1950-1984.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1996.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   2     Release form   No     Transcription   No 

 

CLAUDE JINKERSON, MAURICE HARTSHORN & OTHERS OF GROCERY CLERKS= LOCAL 648 IN SAN FRANCISCO: 

Interview conducted by, David Selvin and Corinne L. Gilb for Institute of Industrial Relations=Oral History Project, UC Berkeley, 1957.  Interview with Jinkerson, Hartshorn, Robert Hunter, Eric Lyons and Edward Henning, officials of Local 648, which traces history and phenomenal growth of the local beginning in 1937 with the enactment of the NRA and the Wagner Act and the organizing of the clerks at Safeway Stores.  Jinkerson (b. 1905) was secretary-treasurer and its chief executive officer from 1937 to 1970.

Master tape no        Copy no        No. of tapes  0        Release form yes        Transcription yes    

 

SAM KAGEL: (b. 1909) Longtime labor lawyer and arbitrator; discusses the Bay Area Newspaper Guild and other local newspaper unions, 1937-1968; the 1968 Newspaper Guild strike; Teamster leader Jack Goldberger=s organization of the San Francisco newspaper drivers; and Bay Area news vendors and their unions.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 1999.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   Yes     No. of tapes   1      Release form   Yes    Transcription   No 

 

SAM KAGEL: (b. 1909) Longtime labor lawyer and arbitrator; discusses the 1937 and 1941-42 San Francisco hotel strikes, his work for the Pacific Coast Labor Bureau, his relations with AFL and CIO unions, and various labor figures of the time.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall, March 15, 1980 for the California Historical Society.

Master tape   N/A     Copy   N/A     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   Yes     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 23

 

 

SONIA BALTRUN KAROSS: (b. 1901) Organizer and official, Textile Workers Union; born in Lithuania in 1901; one-time member of the Communist Party; official and organizer for the Textile Workers Union for almost forty years; helped organize the California cotton mills, 1930s; also involved in the U.S.-USSR Friendship Committee, Women for Peace, and the Women=s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall for the CHS Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1977.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 309  

 

PAULA KROTSER: (b. 1913) Archaeologist and former Communist; recounts her memories of the San Francisco Waterfront Strike of 1934, California during the Great Depression, her membership and experiences in the Communist Party, and her work with the International League in Marin during the Spanish Civil War.

Interview conducted by Jim Broadstreet, 1986 for class at Vista College; donated by Regional Oral History Project, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   1     Release form   Yes     Transcription   Yes 

 

* STANLEY LATHEN: (b. 1908) Central figure in labor movement of Vallejo, California, World War II until retirement, 1968; organizer for Vallejo Plasterers Union, early 1930s to 1941; in 1941 revitalized Retail Store Employees Union Local 373 of Solano and Napa counties; led Local 373 for twenty-seven years; greatly expanded local=s membership and influence while taking central role in civic affairs and Democratic Party politics.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1997.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   Yes     No. of tapes   3     Release form   No     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 46 

 

NORMAN LEONARD: (b. 1914) Lawyer, activist, and retired ILWU counsel; hired by San Francisco law firm Gladstein, Grossman, and Margolis (later renamed Gladstein, Anderson, and Leonard) in 1938; during his long career he defended a wide variety of leftists and radicals, including Harry Bridges, the ILWU, Communists, suspected Communists, student demonstrators, unionists, conscientious objectors during World War II, gays, and free speech activists.

Interview conducted by Estolv Ethan Ward for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1985.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 309 

 

* DAN MAHONEY: (b. 1916) Irish nationalist, peace advocate, and organizer for Newspaper Guild in New York City; discusses Irish working class family life before World War II, co-founding chapter of the League against War and Fascism in high school, organizing for Guild in 1930s, Left politics, and his staff job with Hotel Workers Union, New York, after the war; ultimately settled in California.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1997.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   3     Release form   No     Transcription   No 

 

JENNIE MATYAS: (1895-1988) Vice president, International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 1941-1962; describes coming to the United States from her native Hungary at age ten and joining the ILGWU at age seventeen; discusses the women=s suffrage movement, the Socialist Party in San Francisco, and her reform efforts as vice president of the ILGWU; also known as Jennie Matyas Charters.  See also taped lecture by Jenny Matyas Charters, AWomen in Organized Labor,@ on organizing the Aneedle trades in New York and San Francisco in the first three decades of the twentieth century.

Interview conducted by Corinne L. Gilb for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley 1955.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 409 

JOSEPH P. MAZZOLA: (1917-1989) Business Manager, U.A. Local 38, Plumbers and Steamfitters, 1954-1989; Vice-President, California Pipe Trades Council; delegate, San Francisco Central Labor Council and San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council; worked on construction of Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, 1930s; discusses childhood, his long affiliation with U.A. Local 38, its apprenticeship and journeyman training programs, and local politics.

Interview conducted by David F. Selvin, 1977, who donated transcript to Labor Archives and Research Center.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 209

 

BERTHA METRO: (1899-1979) Founder, Hotel Services Workers Local 283; first Secretary-Treasurer, Culinary Union Local 2; describes her birth in England, childhood in Canada, and move to San Francisco in 1935; founded Local 283 and worked to organize maids, doormen, bellhops, hotel seamstresses, telephone operators, and clerks; led the union=s first strike in 1937, bringing 4,500 new union members; quit as San Francisco Library Commissioner when the city contracted for bookbinding to a nonunion firm, 1964; elected Secretary-Treasurer of Culinary Union Local 2 after the merging of several affiliated unions, 1975.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall for the CHS Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1978-1979.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages   83 

 

WYNDHAM MORTIMER: (1884-1966) Labor organizer; helped organize the automotive industry in Michigan, 1930s; came to California in 1939 to help unionize the aircraft industry; longtime member of the United Automotive Workers Union; reflects on the effects of anti-communism in the labor movement.

Interview conducted by Elizabeth I. Dixon for the UCLA Oral History Program, 1967.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

 

VIOLET BALCOMB ORR: (1904-1989) Leader, San Francisco Communist Party; graduated from Stanford in 1925; worked as an English teacher in post-Revolutionary Russia, 1928-1930; fired from her teaching job in McMinnville, Oregon, early 1950s; activist in her church and in the peace movement; one-time member of the Laundry Workers Union.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall for the California Historical Society=s  Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1976.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 179 

 

* JEAN PAULINE: (b. 1921) Retired from Modern Times Bookstore Collective in 1996 after twenty-five years; discusses youth in Brooklyn, 1920s-1930s, early interest in cooperatives and anarchism, coming to California, 1944; helping establish Peace and Freedom Party in San Diego, 1967; and Modern Times Bookstore Collective in San Francisco, 1971; describes assisting victims of AIDS crisis, San Francisco, 1980s.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1996.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   2     Release form   No     Transcription   No 

 

 

PATTERSON RANCH INTERVIEWS: Twelve interviews with the ethnically diverse families who lived and worked on Patterson Ranch in southern Alameda County during the first half of the twentieth century; includes interviews with Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Portuguese-Americans, Chinese-Americans, and Swiss-Americans.

 

Interviews conducted by Bill Helfman for the East Bay Regional Park District, 1980s.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcriptions   Yes 

No. of Pages      

 

* FAITH CRAIG PETRIC: (b. 1915) Activist and folk singer; describes her social work with poor and migrant farm workers, 1930s and 1940s; her time as a shipfitter during World War II; her longtime affiliations with the I.W.W., the California State Employees Association, the San Francisco Folk Music Club, and the Freedom Song Network; her career as a folk singer; and her life as a single mother, feminist, and committed leftist; synoptic index available.

Interview conducted by Estelle B. Freedman, 1993.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   5     Release form   No     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 206 

 

* PAUL PINSKY: (b. 1912) Longtime labor activist and consultant to unions in California and Hawaii; recalls U.C. Berkeley; labor organizing, 1930s; discusses career as Research Director, California CIO Council, late 1930s-late 1940s; represented International Fishermen & Allied Workers of America (IFAWA) and Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS) at their CIO purge trials, 1950; consultant to ILWU specializing in employee benefit and union insurance plans; searching comments on ILWU leadership.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1995.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   Yes     No. of tapes   4     Release form   No     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 63

 

HELENE POWELL: (1919-1989) Organizer, ILWU Local 6 in San Francisco, early 1940s; organizer, ILWU headquarters in Los Angeles; describes California during the Depression and World War II and her experiences as a female labor organizer.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall for the California Historical Society=s Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1976.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 163

 

* DAVE REED: (b. 1917) Retired from Local 10 ILWU, 1993, after sixty years on the San Francisco waterfront; veteran of 1934 strike; remembers boxing days, early 1930s; longshore work, 1933; witnessing S.F. police shooting workers during 1934 strike, being arrested for own union activity in 1934, meeting Henry Schmidt, Local 10 pioneer, and Harry Lundeberg, SUP leader; SUP schooner sailor, World War II; and Relief Business Agent, Local 10, ILWU, 1960.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 1995.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   3     Release form   No     Transcription   No 

 

KATHERINE RODIN: (1907-1978) Secretary to San Francisco Communist Party officials, 1930s; joined the Party in 1933; describes various Party officials, including Louise Todd and District Director Sam Darcy; and her memories of the 1934 Maritime and General Strike in San Francisco.

Interview conducted by Lucy Kendall for the California Historical Society=s Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1976.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 32 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIDNEY ROGER: (b. 1914)AA Liberal Journalist on the Air and on the Waterfront: Labor and Political Issues, 1932-1990.@  The many facets of Roger=s life are recorded in this two-volume, 1023-page document: family and youth, actor, writer, broadcasting to the Far East for the Office of War Information during WWII, radio reporter and political commentator, labor journalist, and his long association with the ILWU as editor of its newspaper, a ship clerk, and working in the defense of Harry Bridges during his many trials.  His life parallels the major events in the San Francisco Bay Area from the 30's until his death in 1994.

Interview conducted by Julie Shearer with introduction by Jessica Mitford, 1990 for the Regional Oral History Office, UC Berkeley, as part of their ILWU Oral History Series.

Master tape no        Copy no         No. of tapes no         Release form to Bancroft Library    

            Transcription Yes  

 

J. PAUL ST. SURE: (b. 1902) Labor lawyer; during the 1930s and 1940s, he represented nearly every major industry in the East Bay, including the Milk Producers and the giant California Processors and Growers Association; helped develop multi-employer associations for collective bargaining; served as president of the Pacific Maritime Association; describes his tenure in the Alameda County District Attorney=s office and his memories of politics and labor in the East Bay.

Interview conducted by Corinne L. Gilb for the Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley, 1957.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 373

 

HENRY SCHMIDT: (b. 1899) Born in Holland, his family emigrated to Canada in 1911 to become farmers in Manitoba.  Schmidt moved to San Francisco 1917.  He began longshoring in 1927 and was a participant in the Albion Hall group and the 1934 strike.  He was involved in all ILWU activity in its early years, organized in Hawaii in the 1940s, was a co-defendant in the 1950 Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt trial.  Ended his ILWU career as Pension Director.  Estolv Ward added supplemental interviews to Miriam Stein=s earlier interviews. The Labor Archives has copies of Ward=s supplemental interviews.

Interview conducted by Miriam Stein and Estolv Ethan Ward  for the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, 1974, 1975, 1981.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   6     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 440

 

DAVID SELVIN: (b. 1913)  Selvin=s parents immigrated from Russia to Tooele, Utah in 1909, drawn by family ties to the Jewish agricultural community which had settled in the central part of that state.  Selvin=s father maintained a store in predominately Mormon township of Tooele and also served as a senator in the Utah state legislature.  David  moved to California to attend college, receiving his undergraduate degree in Commerce and Master=s in Labor Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.  An observer of the 1934 Pacific Coast longshore and general strikes, David authored a definitive history of those events, A Terrible Anger in addition to many other works on labor history.  A career as a labor journalist, author and public relations consultant spanned decades and brought Selvin in contact with many key figures in the West Coast labor movement.  The oral history also includes a discussion of his World War II service and work on the Berkeley Interracial Committee and the California Federation for Civic Unity.

Interview conducted by Harvey Schwartz, 2000.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   Yes     No. of tapes   6     Release form         Transcription   Yes 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MARION BROWN SILLS: (1916-1985) Founding member and organizer, Department Store Employees Union Local 1100; recalls growing up in San Francisco, 1920s; hired by Woolworths, 1934; increasingly politicized after being fired by Woolworths for going to a union meeting, 1936; helped organize department store employees, 1937.

Interview conducted by Sue Cobble for the California Historical Society=s Women in the Trade Union Movement Project, 1977.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 119 

 

WILLIAM G. STORRIE (c.1905): President, San Francisco Employers= Council in the 1950s; began his involvement with employer organizations in 1926; describes the conflict between employers and unions during the open shop campaigns of the 1920s and early 1930s, the impact of the San Francisco General Strike of 1934 and the Wagner Act on San Francisco industrial relations, the formation of the Employers= Council in 1938 and his appointment as Vice President, and his Presidency, beginning in 1953.  The final manuscript of the interview was issued in January 1960, when the subject was still President of the Council.

Interview was conducted by Corrine L. Gelb for the Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley, 1960.  Housed in the Sam Kagel collection , LARC Accession # 1998/065.

Master tape   N/A     Copy   N/A     No. of tapes N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 175 

 

DON STEVENS: (b. 1899) Bay Area Newspaper Guild founder, 1930s; elected Guild treasurer, 1936; Guild international representative, 1937-1941; San Francisco Chronicle telegraph editor, 1941-1950; fired for being a ACommunist national security risk@; transcription only (located in LARC People=s World collection, accession number 1992/049, AIndividuals [textual]@).

Interview conducted by Alan D. Cline, 1987, who retains the original copy..

Master tape   No     Copy   No     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes    No. of pages 25 

 

LARRY VAIL: (1910-1990) Secretary-treasurer, Retail Clerks Local 1100; secretary, California State Council of Retail Clerks; discusses the advent of the Department Store Clerks Union in San Francisco in the late 1930s; its 1938 and 1941 strikes; the effects of the Taft-Hartley Law, and his work as secretary of the California State Council of Retail Clerks, 1949-1959.

Interview conducted by Corinne L. Gilb for the Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley, 1958-1959.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 237 

 

JACK WAGNER: Lecture by Wagner, a participant -observer of  the San Francisco Maritime and General Strike of 1934 given in 1979; includes a general observations on the Depression, description of a Ashape-up@ and the conditions on the San Francisco waterfront before the strike, and questions from the audience; synoptic index available. Recorded in 1979.

Master tape   Yes     Copy   No     No. of tapes   1     Release form   N/A     Transcription   No 

 

ANGELA GIZZI WARD: (1910-1997) President, San Francisco Office Workers Union; radicalized by the San Francisco General Strike of 1934, she helped form and later served as president of the Office Workers Union in San Francisco; organizer with the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union during World War II; organizer for the CIO Utility Workers Union Local 137, late 1940s, urging equal pay for equal work for the Union=s women clerks.

Interview conducted by Sue Cobble for the California Historical Society=s  Women in the Trade Union Movement Project and University of Michigan oral history project, The Twentieth Century Trade Union Woman: Vehicle for Social Change 1976.

Master tape   No     Copy   No     No. of tapes   N/A     Release form   N/A     Transcription   Yes 

No. of Pages 129