A two-week mini-exhibit highlighting the Library’s collections on American labor and working class history opened in time for Labor Day 2002. Scholl Center Director Toby Higbie had the difficult task of picking a dozen representative items, with help from exhibit staff Riva Feshbach and Jodi Morrison. The Labor Day exhibit was the first of an on-going series, Yours to Explore, that provided a quick taste of the Newberry for visitors. For those of you who missed the Labor Day exhibit, we provide an item list with call numbers and label copy.
Item 1: Benjamin Thatcher, Traits of the Tea Party.
Frontispiece/title page. [F8441 .86]
Working people played a key role in the events leading up to the American Revolution. George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742-1840) was a poor Boston shoemaker and one of the longest surviving participants in the "Boston Tea Party."
Item 2: Seth Luther, An Address on the Right of Free Suffrage (1833).
Cover/title page. [J 33845]
Seth Luther was a Massachusetts carpenter and a leading advocate of labor reform in the 1830s. In this speech he advocates voting rights for working men and the abolition of debtors' prison.
Item 3: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845).
Pages 94-95. [Case E5.D74608]
Enslaved African Americans worked for industrial employers as well as on rural plantations. In this passage, Douglass describes an episode of racial conflict at the Baltimore shipyard to which his master hired him out.
Item 4: Morris Friedman, The Pinkerton Labor Spy (1907) Pamphlet cover.
[H55283.316]
Employers commonly hired undercover agents to infiltrate workers’ organizations and report back on union strategy, as did local, state, and federal governments. This mass distribution pamphlet aimed to educate union supporters about these “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” A copy of this image appears on page seven.
Item 5: Clarence Darrow, The Open Shop (1909) Pamphlet cover.
[H54.216]
A well-known defense lawyer and civil libertarian, Darrow was also a supporter of labor rights. Here he condemns employers' efforts to prevent unionization, known euphemistically as the “open shop.”
Item 6: Workers Committee on Unemployment, The New Frontier (February 22, 1933).
[Graham Taylor Papers, “Incoming W”]
During the worst years of the Great Depression settlement house workers made common cause with Socialists to advocate on behalf of unemployed workers. The Graham Taylor Papers contain information on living conditions for poor workers on Chicago's near west side throughout the early twentieth century.
Items 7 & 8: CB&Q Strike Poster “Stop! Stop! And See! . . .” & “The Great American Scab Route” (1888).
[Case Broadside 63 and 65]
Railroad unions worked the public relations angle during an 1888 strike against the CB&Q, warning the riding public that they risked injury and death because engineers hired to replace the union workers lacked adequate training to safely operate trains. Given that train wrecks were commonplace in the late 19th century, their audience probably got the point.
Items 9 & 10: Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, The Messenger (September 1926) (May 1927).
[Pullman 06/01/04, B17 F468 and F476]
Led by A. Philip Randolph, the BSCP organized the African American porters and maids who serviced the nation's Pullman sleeping cars. Randolph and the BSCP also were leaders in the effort to eliminate racial barriers to employment for African Americans throughout American industry.
In addition to copies of the Messenger, the Newberry holds a variety of BSCP organizing materials, including a few from the March on Washington Movement. Pullman Company officials collected these and other materials in an effort to keep an eye on the union's activities.
Item 11: United Transport and Service Employees of America- CIO Organizing Flyer.
[Pullman 06/01/04, B25 F652]
During the mid 1940s, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) competed to represent workers at the Pullman Company repair shops. In this flyer, the CIO explains why its brand of “industrial unionism” is more effective than the AFL’s “craft unionism.”