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Labor History 319 INSTITUTE OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS,, Illinois' Forgotten Labor History By WILLIAM J. ADELMAN I.N.At'T-rl 'TP COF INDUSTRIAL II APR 12 1985 L -. _ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN / '/ The Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations . was set up at the University of Illinois in 1946 to "foster, establish, and correlate resident instruction, research, and extension work in labor relations." Graduate study . for resident students at the University leads to the degree of Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Labor and Industrial Relations. A new joint degree program leads to the J.D. degree in Law and the A.M. degree in Labor and Industrial Relations. Institute graduates are now working in business, union, and consulting organizations, government agencies and teaching in colleges and universities. Research . is based on the Institute's instruction from the University Board of Trustees to "inquire faithfully, honestly, and impartially into labor-man- agement problems of all types and secure the facts which will lay the foundations of future progress." Current Institute research projects are in the areas of labor-management relations, labor and government, the union as an institution, the public interest in labor and industrial relations, human resources, organizational behavior, comparative and international industrial relations. Extension ... activities are designed to meet the educational needs of adult groups in labor and industrial relations. Classes, conferences and lectures are offered. A wide range of subjects is available - each adapted to the specific needs of labor, management, or public groups. Information . service of the Institute library furnishes data and reference material to any individual or group in reply to factual inquiries on any aspect of labor and industrial relations. Walter H. Franke, Director Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations 504 East Armory Avenue Champaign, Illinois 61820 Illinois Issues Humanities Essays (third series) By WILLIAM J. ADELMAN Illinois' forgotten labor history BARBARA NEWELL in her book, national unions - from clothing their collective rights. Chicago and the Labor Movement workers to meatcutters, from miners to But given the curricula of most pub- (University of Illinois Press, 1961), bookbinders, from restaurant workers lic schools in this state, most students writes about the uniqueness of the Chi- to teachers - were founded in Illinois. leave school without a sense of this rich cago and Illinois labor movement. Perhaps it was because the Welsh min- and important element in Illinois' his- Some of America's greatest labor lead- ers, the Jewish clothing workers and tory. Few could identify Lewis or ers, like John L. Lewis, Sidney Hill- the German carpenters brought with Jones or Debs, and not many more man, John Mitchell, Mother Jones and them from the Old Country a strong could tell you the significance of events Eugene V. Debs, got their starts in Illi- labor tradition. Perhaps it was because like Haymarket or Pullman. When nois, and this state has always provided of the situation on the East Coast, William Bork, now director of the La- leadership to the national labor move- where boat loads of new immigrants bor Education Division at Roosevelt ment. Before 1900 one out of every arriving daily were willing to work for University attended Washington High four organized workers in the United the lowest wages. The older immi- School on Chicago's south side, he was States lived in Illinois, and few if any grants who migrated westward to Illi- never introduced to labor history. Only states have contributed more to the nois, who had lost their jobs in the years later, while a student at the Uni- history of American labor than Illi- East, may simply have decided that it versity of Illinois, did he learn that his nois. was time to take a stand, and unions American History classroom at Wash- For a variety of reasons, dozens of were the only way they could fight for ington had overlooked the very field I LLI NOIS This is the third of five original essays by distinguished This third series of humanities H O E S humanists to be published in Illinois Issues in this third is made possible in partar by COUNCIL series. No restrictions in regard to style, form or essays essaysosilei y O N .perspective have been placed on the authors. They have a grant from the Illinois Humanities 618 SOUTH been encouraged to use any one of a number of Council,CouNc, in cooperationparpationlwithw.tthe MICHIGANA Wpaoyapproaches including exposition, analysis, satire and National Endowment for the j A4I Reprints of these essays are available at no cost from the Humanities. IL I S6 Illinois Humanities Council, 618 South Michigan Ave., (312) 939-5212 Chicago, Illinois 60605. 22/May 1984/Illinois Issues where the Memorial Day Massacre of Louis Adamic's Dynamite (Harper, 1937 had taken place. Bork eventually 1931) and Matthew Josephson's The learned about this event and its signifi- Robber Barons (Harcourt, 1934) cance, but most Illinois students are brought labor history home to the pub- not so fortunate. lic. Josephson's book was dedicated to This lack of historical perspective Charles and Mary Beard. At the same borders on the disgraceful and danger- time, the Federal Theatre Project en- ous. Local, state, national and interna- couraged the writing of plays and radio tional news stories on labor issues ap- dramas with labor themes, and WPA pear daily in newspapers, and on radio art celebrated the worker and the farm- and television. Young people and er on the job. The original Illinois adults read about the PATCO, Grey- Guide (1939), which was written as hound and Continental Airlines part of the WPA's Federal Writers' strikes. They read and hear of Lech Project, was filled with this state's labor Walesa and the Polish Solidarity move- history. It is heartening that it has re- ment. Yet without a background in la- cently been reissued in paperback with bor history it is impossible for them to the same pictures and text as the origi- understand the true significance of any nal. of these events. After World War II the pattern of To rectify this situation, the Chicago the 1920s was repeated. The McCarthy and Illinois Federations of Labor have "Red Scare" was also anti-union, and passed numerous resolutions over the union members, teachers and research- years, calling for the schools to teach ers remained relatively silent on labor about the contributions of the labor issues until the early 1960s. Historians movement to our state and national like Jesse Lemisch, who worked in the life. Yet despite these efforts most Illi- early 1960s at the University of Chica- nois students still remain unenlight- go, and Staughton Lynd, who was at ened about our rich labor heritage and Roosevelt University for a short time, its importance. There is a danger in this preached the gospel of history written ignorance. As George Santayana put from the bottom up, instead of from it: "Those who cannot remember the the top down. Instead of teaching only past are condemned to repeat it." about politicians, big businessmen or Our state and nation can ill afford even union leaders, these new histori- any repetitions of events like the tion of the event which condemned ans believed the story of the average Memorial Day Massacre, nor can we both Republic Steel and the Chicago citizen and worker should be empha- allow the distortions and inaccuracies Police Department. sized. This led to oral history projects that appear in the few textbooks that This pattern of action, reaction, dis- and new research by people like David even mention this event. Will Scoggins, tortion and correction mirrors the sta- Brody, David Montgomery, Herb Gut- a California professor who conducted tus of labor history in the schools over man, Phil Foner and Alfred Young, the a study of textbooks (Labor in Learn- the years. In the Progressive Era latter at Northern Illinois University. ing: Public School Treatment of the (1898-1917), the works of historians In 1967, a group of union members, World of Work, University of Califor- like Mary and Charles Beard, which labor attorneys, former Wobblies, ear- nia, 1966), found, for example, the fol- stressed the significance of labor ly CIO members, history buffs, labor lowing statement about the Massacre history, were elements of many educators and academics formed a in one U.S. history text: schools' curricula. By the 1920s, how- group devoted to correcting the inac- Swinging clubs, police advance upon ever, labor history had disappeared, curacies in the public's perception of nearly 2,000 steel strike demonstrators and labor history. At first they were inter- at the South Chicago plant of the Re- "The American System," a pam- ested only in correcting misconceptions public Steel Company in 1937. Ten phlet published in Chicago by anti-la- bor business about the Haymarket Affair, and they people were killed during the demon- groups, was supplied to called themselves the Haymarket Me- stration. The violence and bloodshed schools across the country. From this morial caused the public to turn against the publication, young people learned that Committee. By 1968 they had C.I.O. temporarily. unions were un-American and that the expanded their concerns, taking the Yet the facts of the matter were sig- "American Way" was for each worker name of the Illinois Labor History So- nificantly different. Only about 300 to bargain individually with his em- ciety (ILHS), and assuming the follow- pickets were in the area, for one thing. ployer, in keeping with the so-called ing goals: For the 10 were "Frontier It shall be the purpose of the Illinois another, people killed Tradition." Labor History Society to encourage the all shot in the back or side by the police With the coming of the Great De- preservation and study of labor history as they fled.
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