GUIDE: Major works on the trade unions and their leaders from their inception to the present day: microform publications: complete list of titles and index to reels. CRL Reference Folder #90. This microfiche set includes 334 titles and major works on British trade unions. The collection is organized into the following categories: general histories and useful background works; history of individual trades unions and trades councils; biographies and autobiographies of trade union leadership; and reports, documents, trials, etc. The coverage is from 1800, although the majority of works are from the 20th century.
Labor
CRL Collections
CRL’s collection supports research and instructional needs on topics related to labor with: personal papers; union, organizational, and government records; dissertations; and periodicals and newspapers. Primary emphasis in microform sets purchased in this area has been on Great Britain and the United States. CRL’s extensive international and ethnic newspaper collections, as well as Area Studies primary source materials, also offer rich resources for labor studies. Collecting in this area continues through the purchase programs.
The references below feature the strengths of CRL’s holdings in this subject area. Links point to more detailed descriptions in the catalog, as well as to digital versions of the content or digitized finding aids for microfilm where available.
Great Britain
GUIDE: CRL Reference Folder #190. This three-part set comprised of 108 titles is based on the following work: Harrison, Royden. Warwick guide to British labour periodicals, 1790-1970; a checklist. Individual titles are cataloged in CRL’s online catalog.
United States
GUIDE: Woodbridge, Mark E. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization pamphlets, 1889–1955: a bibliography and subject index to the pamphlets held in the AFL-CIO Library. C-27415. This set contains 752 pamphlets from the AFL and 281 pamphlets from the CIO on a wide variety of issues of interest to the unions. The pamphlets are arranged chronologically, then alphabetically by title. Examples of titles include pamphlets from the AFL such as “American Labor's Position in Peace or in War” (1917); “The Truth about Soviet Russia and Bolshevism” (1920); “The Five Day Week Inevitable” (1932); “Hell: Child Labor” (1934). Titles from CIO pamphlets include “The CIO and the Negro Worker” (1939); “Conspiracy against Labor: Full Proof of the Plot by William Green of the AFL and Agents of the Most Anti-Labor Corporations in America to Destroy the Wagner Act” (1940).
Samuel Gompers letterbooks 1883–1924; William Green letterbooks 1925. (Library of Congress Photoduplication Service) (#5271326) 343 reels. This set includes the outgoing correspondence of Samuel Gompers, first President of the American Federation of Labor, and his successor, William Green. Gompers’ letterbooks (aka copybooks) document a wide variety of labor issues and include correspondence with local and national organizers, heads of American foreign trade unions, members of Congress, and U.S. presidents.
GUIDE: Guide to the microfilm edition of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union papers, located at the Southern Historical Collection, the University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N.C. E-8738. This set includes the papers of the STFU and the following: a file of union newspapers; the STFU photographic record; selections from the Socialist Party Archives, Duke University; and selections from the Howard A. Kester papers, 1934–49.
GUIDE: Fink, Gary M. State labor proceedings: a bibliography of the AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO proceedings, 1885–1974 held in the AFL-CIO Library. Z1033.M6A52. CRL Reference Folder #117. This microfiche edition of some 2,000 state convention proceedings summarizes union deliberations and includes officers’ and financial reports, resolutions, elections of officers, and executive council minutes. Organized labor’s attitudes toward a wide variety of political and social issues—including civil rights, women in the labor force, progressivism, the New Deal, the Great Society, the welfare state, militarism, foreign affairs, the Red scares, and many more—are well documented in these proceedings.
