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Links to Labor History Resources in the United States


Harvard University Library Open Collections Program: Women Working, 1800-1930.

Provides access to digitized books, manuscripts and images from the collections of Harvard University Libraries and Museums on the topic of women in the U.S. economy from 1800-1930.

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/



Bridgeport [Connecticut] Public Library. Labor History Timeline and Exhibit.

A survey of the working history of Bridgeport over the last 100 years. Decade by decade, the project shows the growing importance of the worker and labor in the development of a city.

http://www.bridgeporthistory.org/



Greater New Haven [Connecticut] Labor History Association

A group whose mission is to collect, preserve, and share the history of working people in the Greater New Haven Area. Its membership consists of unions and individuals, with an Executive Board composed of retired trade unionists, active trade unionists, and students and teachers interested in labor history.

http://laborhistory.org/



New York University, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Tamiment Institute Library & Wagner Labor Archives.

The Tamiment Institute Library is a research collection documenting the history of American radicalism and labor from the late 19th century to the present.

http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/



Bread and Roses

A not-for-profit cultural arm of New York's Health and Human Service Union, 1199/SEIU, with 220,000 predominantly Latina and African American women members employed in health care institutions throughout the New York City metropolitan area, New Jersey and Florida. Founded in 1979 as a cultural resource for union members and students in New York City who would otherwise have little access to the arts. Special emphasis is given to programs that signify and interpret their history while generating new artistic expression. Bread and Roses actively strives to depict artistic, cultural and historical themes and issues affecting people from many backgrounds.

http://www.bread-and-roses.com/index.html



University at Albany, State University of New York. Department of History. U.S. Labor and Industrial History World Wide Web Audio Archive

http://www.albany.edu/history/LaborAudio/ . Also available at the University at Albany is "Documenting Labor, Inside & Out", at http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/documentinglabor/, an exhibit featuring the labor-related collections held in the Archives of Public Affairs and Policy (APAP) at the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York. These collections contain a range of materials, from the most basic internal records to those that document unions' interactions with management, the larger labor community, and the world at large.



Cornell University, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library, and the Triangle Factory Fire online exhibit at http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/.



Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section Library.

The Industrial Relations Library (IR) was organized in 1922, coinciding with the establishment of Princeton University's Industrial Relations Section. It ranks as the oldest special collection of its type among universities in the United States. The collection of 6500 volumes and over 100,000 pamphlets is highly specialized. Subject areas covered include: labor economics; labor relations; labor union organization and policies; social security; unemployment insurance; personnel administration; economic aspects of education; labor-management relations; human resources utilization; and manpower aspects of economic development.

http://firestone.princeton.edu/irl/



George Meany Memorial Archives Library, Silver Spring, Maryland. George Meany Center for Labor Studies.

Holds materials related to labor and industrial relations. It operates to meet the needs of the staff of the AFL-CIO, The George Meany Center for Labor Studies, the affiliates, and to a limited degree, the general public. Its collection consists of over 12,000 books and pamphlets covering the labor movement and related issues. In addition to the books and pamphlets, the library has nearly 400 newspapers, journals (including current International Union journals) and newsletters. It also has proceedings and constitutions of the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions, and a vertical file collection of biographies of labor union personalities and trade union histories.

http://www.georgemeany.org/archives/home.html

Also includes an online exhibit about A. Philip Randolph, a trade unionist active in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, at http://www.nlc.edu/archives/apr.html.



Pennsylvania State Archives. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Bureau of Archives and History.

http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/DAM/overview.htm



United Electrical Workers/Labor Collections and the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania Labor Legacy at the University of Pittsburgh.

http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/archives/ue_labor.html and http://www.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy/



Penn State University Historical Collections & Labor Archives.

The holdings on the labor movement trace the continuous effort by working men and women to win dignity and prosperity. Records of unions include minute books, executive board documents, and office files for important organizations, including the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers, Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers of America, Amalgamated Lithographers of America, and the International Photoengravers Union. There are also collections of records for many local unions and central labor bodies in Pennsylvania. HCLA has personal papers for several notable labor leaders from the United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers, including Philip Murray, David J. McDonald, I. W. Abel, Clinton S. Golden, and William Mitch. Letters, diaries, reports, and photographs from several union organizers and staff members are included in the labor materials.

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/speccolls/hcla/



Labor History Sources in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/laborlc.html



George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), Special Collections Research Center

http://www.gwu.edu/gelman/spec/labor.html



Virginia Historical Society online exhibit "Child Labor in Virginia, the Photographs of Lewis Hine."

http://www.vahistorical.org/exhibits/hine_intro.htm



Georgia State University, Pullen Library, Special Collections. Southern Labor Archives.

The Southern Labor Archives documents Southern working people and their trade unions, professional associations and political organizations. The SLA's 2,000 feet of manuscripts, pamphlets, periodicals, collective bargaining agreements, constitutions and by-laws, and convention proceedings from 1888 to the present forms the largest accumulation of labor records in the Southeast. The SLA is the official repository for the records of the International Association of Machinists, the United Textile Workers of America, the United Furniture Workers of America and several state federations of labor. Its holdings are particularly strong in the areas of textiles; clothing; furniture and wood products; machinery and aerospace; nursing; air traffic control; and AFL-CIO administrative offices in the Southeast. Individuals whose careers are chronicled in the holdings include Paul Christopher, Carey Haigler, Joseph Jacobs, John Jervis, E.T. Kehrer, Stetson Kennedy, Carmen Lucia, Eula McGill, Claude Ramsay, John Ramsay, Stanton E. Smith, E. Leon Stamey, and W.J. Usery, Jr.

http://www.library.gsu.edu/spcoll/pages/area.asp?ldID=105&guideID=510



Texas Labor Archives. University of Texas at Arlington.

http://libraries.uta.edu/SpecColl/txlabarc.html



Ozarks Labor Union Archive, Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri.

http://library.missouristate.edu/archives/labor/



Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs.

The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs collect and preserve the records of the American labor movement, with special emphasis on industrial unionism and related social, economic, and political reform movements in the United States. The collecting scope was subsequently expanded to include urban affairs, with particular focus on the Detroit metropolitan area. Resources include the papers and records of over 1,600 individuals and organizations.

http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/



Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. Labor Collections.

Collection consists of records documenting organized labor and socialism since the early twentieth century. The Society's holdings include the records of the American Federation of Labor, United Food and Commercial Workers Union (including the Packinghouse Workers, Amalgamated Meat Cutters, and Retail Clerks), Textile Workers Union, Teamsters, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Labor Party, and Socialist Party.

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/archives/



Minnesota Historical Society, Labor Collections

Holds the records of such organized labor groups as the Communication Workers of America, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and the Order of Railroad Telegraphers of North America.

http://www.mnhs.org/collections/manuscripts/labor.htm



University of California, Berkeley. Institute of Industrial Relations Library.

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~iir/library/



California State University, Northridge. University Library. Urban Archives Center.

The Urban Archives Center documents the history of Los Angeles County by collecting original research materials from voluntary associations and community leaders. Major subjects of holdings include Labor and Guild History, Politics, Minority and Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies and the history of the San Fernando Valley in California. An index to research topics and detailed finding guides for each collection are available in the Archives and the University Library reference room.

http://library.csun.edu/spcoll/urban_archives/hpuac.html



San Francisco State University, J. Paul Leonard Library. Labor Archives and Research Center.

The collection includes materials from the counties surrounding San Francisco Bay, including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. More than 6,000 feet of primary source material is available for research. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, a wide scope of Bay Area labor activity is represented.

http://www.library.sfsu.edu/about/depts/larc.php



Directory of Labor Archives in the United States and Canada

Compiled by the Labor Archives Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists.

http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/labor/labor_archives_directory.asp



LOST LABOR: Images of Vanished American Workers 1900-1980

A selection of 160 photographs excerpted from a collection of more than 1100 company histories, pamphlets, and technical brochures documenting America's business and corporate industrial history.

http://www.lostlabor.com/



H-Labor (Labor History online discussion group)

Recommended books on labor history.

http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~labor/



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This page maintained by L. K. Smith.