1997 Newsletter

eut efLibrary Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs University Archives Fall1997

Fraser Center for Workplace Issues Debuts

The Walter P. Reuther Library is honored to join Wayne State University's College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs (CULMA) and others in announcing the creation of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at a dinner celebration November 12th. The event also signals the start of a fund-raising campaign to support the endowed center which will pay tribute to the Douglas Fraser former UAW president's lifelong commitment to justice workplace relations and leadership skills for personnel at and equity in the American all levels. These and other programs will focus on an workplace and his service to array of core issues within the workplace, such as Wayne State University and the collective bargaining, ethical behavior, the impact of larger community. technology, labor-management cooperation, employment A national advisory board security, and family needs. composed of civic leaders and representatives of labor, management, and academe will direct the work of the Fraser Reuther Library Web Site Center, conceived as a forum for employers, workers, and Calling all Internet surfers! If you haven't checked scholars to discuss a multi- out our Web site yet, you should. The Reuther plicity of issues affecting the Library Web site has been up and running for modern workplace. CULMA, a almost two years and it just keeps getting better. non-traditional college whose Tune in and you'll find important information on approach is interdisciplinary our services and programs, feature stories on topics and issue-oriented, provides the in labor, urban, and Wayne State University history, perfect venue for formulating subject area reference tools, and a complete list of and implementing policies and collections. Especially useful are e-mail links to all practical programs relating to staff members and a "Hot Links" page that provides the workplace as a social, quick access to most labor archives in North political, and economic setting. America and to the home pages of our major union The Center will be involved donors. The Reuther Library Web site is continu- in a number of activities, Wayne StateUniversity ally enhancing its offerings, so set your favorite including technical assistance; Web browser for www.reuther. wayne.edu and College of Urban, Labor and research and publication; enjoy! Metropolitan Affairs workshops, seminars, and conferences; and training in Douglas Fraser Walter Reutherrecognized his That struggle negotiating skills and made required him Exhibit Opens him an administrative assistant. and his union Later be was elected co- to become part director of Region 1A. of the debate To mark the occasion of the Given the reins of the on a wide Fraser Center announcement, Chrysler Department with his range of issues the Reuther Library will open a election to the UAW interna- not tradition- major exhibit tracing the life tional executive board in 1962, ally the and career of Douglas Fraser. Fraser helped negotiate a preserve of the Respected by his adversaries as number of historic contract labor move- a man of honesty and integrity, gains, including early retire- ment, like Doug Fraser's lack of preten- ment, S.-Canada wage health care, sion, natural camaraderie, and parity, restrictions on compul- social welfare, energetic advocacy on their sory overtime, a comprehen- civil rights, behalf have endeared him to the ) sive health and safety program, housing, rank and file as well. Heart and accelerated arbitration, pension education, and soul a union man, his work was benefit increases, and improve- the environ- and is his life. ments in the. cost of living ment. He also understood that Doug Fraser (second from allowance. He was to solve workers' problems, the left) and Chrylser negotiating elected a vice- union must move outside the team discussing strategy with De Soto Workers UA W president, Walter president in 1970 bargaining room into the Reuther (right), 1958 and president in political arena where interna- 1977, as the Ameri- tional trade and national can auto industry economic policies are decided. was losing market Doug Fraser retired from the share to the Japanese UAW in 1983 and joined the FRASER f and the union was faculty of Wayne State Univer- losing membership. sity with what he describes, in G G Secretory-Treasure r ... ED. (RED GRANT An early adherent typically self-effacing fashion, Trustee . . . D f7 ' D - of the UAW's as the "concocted" title of u Guide ... u Fraser University Professor of Labor N - N nonetheless quickly Studies. A member of the UAW N N adopted the prag- executive board that gave p L E E A matic style of his unanimous approval to the p ARE - THE 0 L of E hero and mentor, funding of the original building E R THE ARE THE s Walter Reuther, who housing the Archives of Labor viewed workers as and Urban Affairs, "Professor" UAWW Local227 election flyer, 1944 consumers fueling Fraser's office in that building's Fraser and longtime friend the economy that Woodcock Wing makes him a and colleague, UA W vice- employed them. member of the Reuther Library president and GM director, Born the son of an electrician During his presidency, he family. Irving Bluestone, at a in a working class district of continued to whittle away at demonstration outside GM Glasgow, Scotland in 1916, managerial prerogatives and headquarters during 1979 Doug came to Detroit with his fashioned programs like trade contract talks family at the age of six. He assistance allowances for job dropped out of high school at retraining to help workers 17, after a serious bout with adjust to competition and save rheumatic fever. A few years their jobs. In return for later he got a job at Chrysler's contract concessions, Chrysler DeSoto plant as a "dingman," gave him a seat on its board of smoothing out wrinkled sheet directors in 1980, the first time metal, and he joined the a union leader sat on the board fledgling UAW Over the next of a major corporation. forty years, he worked his way Fraser early on imbibed his up the union ranks, first as father's socialist politics and president of DeSoto Local 227 moral outrage at the indignities and then on the staff of the suffered by workers and, like Chrysler Department, where, Reuther, engaged the UAW in during the long 1950 strike, the struggle for social justice. Pa e 2 government wiretapping, and From the Director ... affirmative action. The project, jointly sponsored It has been several years since the Last issue of by the Law School, CULMA, the Reuther Library newsletter appeared. During that and the Reuther Library, en- time, much has been accomplished-5o much, in fact, compasses not only the estab- that space permits only a brief mention of some major lishment of a national archive of initiatives. African-American legal history, Certainly, joining the technological revolution in but also the preparation of information services ranked high on our List of instructional materials and priorities. The first step in our automation effort was exhibits for educational out- to ensure access of the entire staff to computers, and reach, an oral history compo- to Link those computers to each other and to the nent, a visiting lectureship, and Judge Damon Keith incredible resources of the Internet. As part of our a research grant program. continuing effort to incorporate computers into the To learn more about the everyday work of serving our patrons, we spent a year Damon J. Keith Collection and Judge Keith, creating an automated shelf List of our holdings and Law Collection visit the Damon J. Keith Law recently installed a computerized log to track Collection Web site at reference requests. Established www.reuther. wayne.edu/ We have also made substantial progress in damonkeith.html. cataloging our manuscript collections, oral histories, books, and serials for retrieval via the national on- The seeds of the Damon J. line catalogs, making remote access possible. And a Keith Law Collection were three-year project to reduce the backlog of planted at a November, 1993 unprocessed collections dramatically increased the reception announcing the start .~ of a national campaign to raise a 1on amount of textual and audiovisual material available Nt to researchers. funds to support the collection (OWorks Recognizing that conserving the past is labor and its programs. Supporters .r::. intensive, we have sought and received the invaluable used the occasion to articulate help of the Service Employees International Union Wayne State University Emeri- I- and the American Federation of Teachers in providing tus Professor of Law, Edward J. professional archivists to care for their collections. Littlejohn's dream of a central The Reuther Library, in Finally, we have continued to enrich the holdings of repository documenting the partnership with the Detroit the archives. Perhaps the most notable recent substantial historical accom- Public Library and the Detroit acquisition is the Detroit News photographic plishments of African-Ameri- Historical Museum, hosted a negative collection, consisting of several hundred can lawyers, judges, and other series of six public "conversa- thousand images of Detroit over the last century. individuals and organizations tions on American pluralism Our expanded outreach effort includes this prominent in the legal struggle and identity" this past winter, newsletter and the Reuther Library Web site, profiled for racial justice. With the designed to explore how our on the front page. We are also undertaking a series of search for a project director attitudes about work both define major exhibitions, both in the Reuther Library currently under way, that dream and are shaped by the diversity Gallery and at other sites. This summer, we installed edges closer to reality. that characterizes American a permanent exhibition on UA W presidents from Professor Littlejohn began society. Part of "The Nation Reuther to Yokich at the union's Family Education collecting source material on That Works" project organized Center in northern Michigan. In November, an African-American legal history by the American Library exhibit celebrating the life and career offormer UA W while researching an article Association and funded by a President Douglas Fraser opens in our gallery to (later expanded to a book) on grant from the National Endow- coincide with the start of the campaign to raise funds Michigan's black lawyers and ment for the Humanities, the for the Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne judges. Those documents, oral programs used text, film, music, State University. histories, photographs, and poetry, and oral history focused We have just completed development of a memorabilia, as well as the pa- on the themes of gender, strategic plan that will guide us into the next century. pers of project namesake, Judge immigration/migration, race/ Our accomplishments over the past five years -in Damon J. Keith, will form the ethnicity, and age to promote a automating archives operations, in improving nucleus of the collection. discussion of the central role of research access to our collections, in promoting the During a thirty-year career on work in our national culture. Reuther Library's holdings and programs among old the U. S. District and Appeals Detroit was also fortunate to be friends and new constituencies -should provide firm Courts, Judge Keith, a legend- chosen as the site to celebrate ground for future successes. ary figure in the struggle for the kickoff of "The Nation That racial equality, has delivered Works," featuring NEH chair, Les Hough landmark decisions on busing, Sheldon Hackney, leading the housing discrimination, first "conversation." Spotlight on Kevin Boyle, Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, working Research in the Reuther Library Reading Room

I first came to the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs a decade ago, when I began work on my doctoral dissertation. Like many labor historians, I suspect, I thought of the archives as a wonderful source lives to challenge racial for writing the institutional discrimination. I found stories SEMCOG, history of the modern labor of white auto workers clinging movement. Over the last few to shop floor traditions that sub- Newspaper Guild years, though, I have realized ordinated black workers. And I Records that the Archives is much more found documents describing the than that. Tucked away in its borderlands where white and Management collections, scholars can find black auto workers came extraordinary data on the social together, to share a smoke, to Projects history of the mid-twentieth tell a joke, to test the racial century working class. rules. Under Way I was hardly the first person The traces of this hidden to realize this. Take just two history needed to be expanded. The Reuther Library, which examples. Pamela Sugiman's So I pushed outward from the houses the voluminous record fine book on women in Cana- UAW Fair Practices Department of twentieth-century industrial dian automobile factories draws Collection. I followed the trail unionism and urban growth, heavily on union records to into the collections of UAW increasingly uses records reconstruct workers' everyday locals, where extensive griev- management as an essential part experiences. And Tom Sugrue's ance records offer details of of the process of appraising scintillating study of post-World auto workers' concerns and records for permanent preserva- War II Detroit uses the records complaints. I turned to the tion. At the same time, our of community organizations to massive, and under-utilized, large organizational donors create a dramatic portrait of the collections of the UAW regional benefit from the cost savings city's neighborhoods as they offices. And I dug into the and improved efficiency that underwent racial change. collection of the UAW Research professional records manage- My path into the Archives' Department, whose staffers ment can deliver. social history holdings followed pursued study after study of the The Southeast Michigan a slightly different route than union rank and file. In those Council of Governments those of Sugiman and Sugrue. collections I found more hints [SEMCOG] has been depositing I began researching the highest of postwar race relations on the its inactive historically valuable levels of American politics in factory floor. Put together, records in the Archives of Labor the 1950s and 1960s, trying to those hints began to tell more and Urban Affairs since 1980. place the United Automobile fully the history I was pursuing. Formed in 1968 as a voluntary Workers (UAW) within the Though the documents have association of governments to Project team members, Paula postwar liberal community. started to pile up, I still have a coordinate planning programs in Montgomery (seated) and That research led me to explore long way to go before I can be- the heavily populated industrial Greta Krapac, reviewing the the racial dynamics within the gin to understand the tangled counties of southeastern SEMCOG records inventory UAW To that end, I turned to history of race relations among Michigan, SEMCOG surveys the UAW Fair Practices blue collar Americans. But I economic and industrial Department Collection, sonie have no doubt that there is development, demographic fifty boxes of material detailing much more information squir- trends, land and water use UAW racial practices during the reled away in the Archives' patterns, and the delivery of period. There I found traces of collections, information that health care, public safety, and a postwar civil rights movement will open up the secret places- educational services to the that has remained largely hidden the factory stairwells, the lunch region's residents, collecting. the from history. I found stories of wagons, the neighborhood kind of data prized by social African-American auto workers, bars--of the postwar working science researchers. north and south, risking their class. livelihoods and at times their Kevin Boyle (continued next page)

Pa >c 4 new members. Organizing The SEIU Microfilm Collec- Service tion (1921-1955), which contains the earliest records of Employees the union, and the executive office files for the McFetridge The historical record of the (1940-1960) and Sullivan Service Employees International (1960-1971) administrations, Union (SEIU) is a relatively new especially the activity reports of addition to the Archives of organizers and local union Labor and Urban Affairs and records, provide fertile ground further strengthens our important for documenting the effective- non-industrial union holdings. ness of SEIU organizing One of the largest and fastest campaigns. Additionally, SEIU Members of SEIU Local SEMCOG, continued growing unions in the United serial publications (1941-) and 399, Los Angeles Research Department records Hospital and Service Last January SEMCOG States, SEIU owes its success contracted with the Reuther principally to hard-hitting and (1942-1979) are rich sources of Employees Union, information on organizing, picket hospital site, Library to manage a one-year innovative organizing strategies membership growth, and related 1960s pilot project to survey all developed in the post-World department records, develop a War II era. topics. Indeed, given the disaster plan, and establish a From its earliest days, the centrality of this subject to most comprehensive records manage- union's membership has been union activities, relevant ment program for the organiza- characterized by extraordinary material may be found through- tion. The project team spent occupational diversity that cuts out SEIU collections. two months inventorying across ethnic, racial, and gender As the fastest growing records on site at SEMCOG lines. By the postwar era, the segment of the work force, headquarters in Detroit and union was organizing over a service employees merit the feeding that information into an hundred different occupations, same scholarly attention their electronic database specially including janitors, window more "glamorous" counterparts created for the project. washers, elevator operators, in the industrial sector have The team then met with bowling alley pinsetters, stadium historically enjoyed. And the SEMCOG professional and employees, and non-professional Archives anticipates increasing support staff to discuss ways to health care workers from both usage of SEIU collections as improve inadequate filing the public and private sectors. researchers become aware of the systems and to determine the Organizing such a diverse work wide range of topics they cover legal, administrative, or force presented many difficul- and their salience, given the research value of different types ties, but SEIU met the challenge, unusual diversity of the union's of records as the preliminary while contending with all the membership, for the "new" step in preparing retention and usual impediments to organi,zing working class history. disposal schedules for each campaigns- anti-union employ- office and department. The ers, political opposition, apa- discussions also addressed thetic and intimidated workers, issues related to implementation and competition from other of a disaster preparedness and unions. recovery plan to be designed by In the 1950s and '60s, under ~~n~~ ~m fl~l~nf~ the Reuther Library in collabo- the leadership of William FOR: NEW LEADERSHIP ration with SEMCOG. McFetridge and David Sullivan, FOR: HIGHER PAY The pilot project will termi- SEIU saw many of its members FOR: BLUE CROSS nate in November with staff lose their jobs to automation. BLUE SHIELD training sessions, but both The international reacted with LifE INSURANCE organizations are committed to an aggressive campaign on the FOR: DYNAMIC LEADERSHIP the maintenance of the records local level to organize health management program put in care and other underrepresented JOIN place during the past year. Over service workers. During the ~mlml~ ~[~~~~r [Mrwm~ the summer, Reuther Library same period, SEIU and other staff also offered its records unions lobbied successfully for 11r1rmm ~~~. Ul· rn~ management expertise to the the enactment of federal laws l~tll m national offices of The Newspa- permitting public employees to Organizing Boston public per Guild, another of our bargain collectively, thus employees, 1958 donors. creating a large pool of potential His association with the The William E. Trautmann Library Acquires BWU ended, however, over Collection consists of one IWW Founder's his involvement with the volume of a projected three- Industrial Workers of the volume autobiography. The Autobiography World (IWW), a radical group manuscript traces the history of unionists known popularly of the IWW from 1905 to as the Wobblies, which he The Archives of Labor and 1920, a tumultuous period in helped found in 1905 and Urban Affairs recently the development of the which he served as secretary- acquired the unpublished · American labor movement. It treasurer and general execu- autobiography of William E. captures the factional infight- tive board member. Elected a Trautmann. Born in New ing that permeated the IWW general organizer after Vincent Zealand of German-American while portraying the personal St. John replaced him as parents in 1869, Trautmann experiences of an important secretary-treasurer 1908, emigrated to the United States in figure in one of the most Trautmann led the Pressed from Germany in the late dynamic and colorful unions William Trautmann 1890s, eventually settling in Steel Car Company strike at that movement has produced. ) Ohio, where he worked for the McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania Brewery Workers Union in 1909 and helped direct the To learn more about the history ofthe IWW (BWU) and served as a famous Lawrence, Massachu- and the Archives' IWW-related holdings, see In setts textile strike in 1912. the Shadow of the I. W. W. on the Reuther national committeeman to the Library Web site. Socialist Party.

Treasures from the IWW Collections

This portrait ofJoe Hill under the union :S motto watched over workers in the Chicago office. The artist copied his likeness from one of the few photographs of the labor martyr, his mug shot.

Big Bill Haywood bought this addressograph platemaker in One of several 1913. At 400 hand-drawn pounds, it was the postcqrds Joe only piece of Hill, an furniture in the accomplished Chicago cartoonist, sent headquarters to his seaman office to escape friend, Charles destruction Rudberg during the Palmer Raids.

Pa e 6 several renovations and identity changes before the massive $45.8 million effort that culminated in last spring's rededication. In 1917 Central High School began sharing its facilities with Detroit Junior College, the brainchild of Central's dedicated and innova- tive principal, David Old Main, 1933 Mackenzie, and the forerunner of WSU 's College of Liberal Arts. By 1926 the renamed College of the City of Detroit Workers renovating the clock tower, 1996 WSU 's Old Main had taken sole possession of the UAWIEB imposing Romanesque revival Restored and structure at the corner of Cass Memories and Warren. Remembered WSU achieved university Preserved status in 1933, when CCD In April of this year, a 100- combined with the Teachers The Archives of Labor and year-old, completely renovated College, Medicine, Pharmacy Urban Affairs began interview- Old Main was unveiled during a and Law to form the Colleges of ing International Executive week of special events, drawing the City of Detroit, an unpopu- Board members several years hundreds of alumni back to the lar name, changed within a ago as part of an ongoing Wayne State University campus. matter of months to Wayne project to collect and preserve The Reuther Library, home of University, after Mad Anthony the memories of this important the University Archives, figured Wayne, the Revolutionary War part of the UAW leadership. To prominently in the activities general. The new university date, twelve interviews have leading up to the centennial soon outgrew its lodgings, been conducted, including those celebration, documenting the several departments spilling with former presidents, Leonard restoration's progress over the over into neighboring houses, Woodcock, Douglas Fraser and past three years, hosting the but it wasn't until 1948 that Owen Bieber, vice-presidents, ceremonial opening of the time WSU got another bona fide Irving Bluestone, Olga Madar capsule taken from the original classroom building, State Hall. and Ken Morris, and regional cornerstone, and exhibiting the The campus continued to add directors, George Burt and Joe architectural and social history buildings during the postwar Tomasi. of the building with photographs years as returning veterans Oakland University Professor and memorabilia from the swelled the student ranks. To of History and UAW chronicler, Archives' collections. prevent confusion, what had Jack Barnard, recently video- Dedicated in 1897 as Detroit been called the Main Building taped interviews with Owen Central High School, Old Main, was formally renamed Old Main Bieber and Ken Morris at the the largest classroom building in 1950. television studios of Wayne on campus, had gone through The new Old Main - both State University. The videotape Biology classroom, 1935 the refurbished old building and format, popular with documen- a newly-constructed wing - tary filmmakers using the has become the home of the Archives' collections, is rapidly Colleges of Science and Fine, becoming the preferred medium Performing and Communication among oral history practitio- Arts. It now houses an art ners. When transcribed and gallery, recital hall, music bound, the UAW IEB oral practice rooms, art and dance histories will join Jack Skeels's studios, a planetarium, anthro- interviews with UAW pioneers, pology museum, general and Richard Feldman's with a later specialty classrooms, and generation of UAW members, administrative offices. To probe and scores of others in the deeper into the mysteries of Old Reuther Library's substantial Main past and present, visit the collection of oral history Reuther Library Web site at sources on workers and the www.reuther. wayne.edu. labor movement.

} Calendar GENERAL INFORMATION 1997 1998 Reading Room hours: Monday-Tuesday OCTOBER APRIL 11:00 a.m.-6:45p.m. Wednesday-Friday 9 "Tony Spina, Chief 17-18 Michigan Conference 9:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Photographer" on Local History Exhibit opening McGregor Memorial Business hours: Hankins Gallery/ Conference Center, Monday-Friday Elbinger Imaging Wayne State University 8:30 a.m.-5:00p.m. Lansing, Michigan [through November 28] 28 Rededication of Jewish Phone: Community Archives as (313) 577-4024 23-25 North American Labor Leonard N. Simons History Conference Jewish Community Fax: McGregor Memorial Archives (313) 577-4300 Conference Center, Wayne State University Web: Wayne State University www.reuther.wayne.edu MAY NOVEMBER 21 Manuscript Society 8 Workers' Education Annual Meeting visit Local189 75th Reuther Library Anniversary meeting The Reuther Library newsletter is published Reuther Library each fall to inform those SEPTEMBER interested in the Library's 12 Fraser Center for United Farm Workers work about collections, Exhibit opening and exhibits, and special Workplace Issues projects. It is written by dinner celebration reception members of the library Hyatt Regency Hotel Reuther Library staff and the editor, Dearborn, Michigan Margaret Rancher, and designed by Sandy Kimberley with the Doug Fraser Exhibit assistance of Tom opening and reception Featherstone. Reuther Library

Walter P. Reuther Library 5401 Cass Avenue Detroit MI 48202

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