Labor Archives of Washington – Pacific Northwest Features

New radio episodes: LELO and Intersectional Affirmative Action and Civil Rights Labor Organizing

The latest episodes of the Labor Archives of Washington’s regular segment on the KSVR radio show We Do the Work aired throughout October and at 91.7 FM KSVR (Mount Vernon, Washington) and are now streaming online via KSVR and Public Radio International’s Exchange.

The segment, the second part on the history and legacy of intersectional labor and civil rights organizing of the Northwest Labor Employment and Law Office, including the killing of two cannery worker union leaders in Seattle in 1981. This program features activists Cindy Domingo, Nemesio (Jr) Domingo and Garry Owens and Conor Casey, Labor Archivist for the Labor Archives of Washington.

Listen to the program:

https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/256810-cindy-and-nemesio-jr-domingo-and-garry-owens-le/floating_piece

Also airing We Do The Work: WXOJ (Florence, MA), KOWA (Olympia, WA), WRFI (Ithaca, NY), KIDE (Hoopa Tribe, CA), KVWV (Bellingham, WA), KBFG (Seattle, WA), KNSJ (San Diego, CA), KMRE (Bellingham), Work Force Rising, KCEI (Taos, NM), KODX (Seattle, WA), KGHI (Westport, Grays Harbor, WA), KPPQ (Ventura, CA), KVOY (Norman, OK), KBOG (Bandon, OR), WEFT (Champaign, IL), KRJF (Santa Rosa, CA), KWSI (Grand Junction, CO), and intermittently on KWRK (Fairbanks, AK or Window Rock, AZ), KVGD (Goldendale, WA), KZAX (Bellingham, WA), WRIR (Richmond, VA), KVRF (Palmer, AK), and WXDU (Durham, NC)

Links to Other Episodes in the Series:

Latest Episode of Labor Archives TV Follows Scholar Who Uncovered a Surprising History of Latino Voting Rights Struggles in Washington State in UW Special Collections

LaborArchives_banner header final SMALLER

images

The most recent episode of the Labor Archives’ segment on UW 360 focuses on Josué Estrada’s journey towards a PhD degree in history from the University of Washington. From his personal story that inspires his desire to help others to the invaluable resources and opportunities that are available at the UW. Estrada’s scholarly work has uncovered a surprising history of Latino struggles to overcome disenfranchisement and to gain voting rights in Washington State and nationwide.

In Fall 2016, the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections, launched a 10-episode segment on UW360, a University of Washington television program. These stories, which highlight LAW’s collections and researchers, air on KOMO, UWTV, and are available on various online media channels thereafter. Each segment in designed to highlight the collections and activities of the Labor Archives and of the UW Libraries Special Collections, as well as the students, researchers, and communities we serve.

See full list of episodes below!

List of Episodes
Labor Archives of Washington Overview

The UW library system is ranked in the top ten of all public research universities in the country with more than five million users every year. So when it comes to researching life in our region, there’s no better place to learn than a UW library.

This story takes us to one small area of UW Special Collections that’s dedicated to the rich history of the labor movement in the Pacific Northwest and is devoted to preserving the records of working people.

Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, Cannery Workers Scholarship [Segment Starts at 00:13:00]
The Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union has been a powerful voice for working people since 1933. And the fight for fair employment hasn’t always been peaceful. UW alumnus Silme Domingo found himself, along with fellow labor organizer Gene Viernes, at the center of a tragic event that shook Seattle in 1981. Now a scholarship from the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies is carrying forward their legacy and turning a tragic loss into a potential future for a UW Student.
—
The Everett Massacre Centennial [Segment Starts at 00:13:37]
Washington state has a rich history of progressive activism – and that history has just hit a significant milestone. Relive the one hundredth anniversary of the Everett Massacre and learn how that tragic event helped shape the labor history of Washington.

Labor Archives: Minimum Wage Archivists (The SeaTac Seattle Minimum Wage History Project)

Grunge, espresso carts, fiberglass skis and international companies like Boeing and Microsoft were of course all home-grown. Seattle is also getting a lot of credit for another movement that’s gaining ground around the country: the battle to raise the minimum wage. Meet a group of UW student researchers who are recording the detailed history of this idea that may be coming to a ballot box near you.

Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer, graduate student researcher, SeaTac & Seattle Minimum Wage History Project, UW
Rod Palmquist, graduate teaching assistant, Geography, graduate student researcher, SeaTac & Seattle Minimum Wage History Project, UW
Labor Archives: Progressive Art (Pablo O’Higgins and the Ship Scalers’ Mural in Kane Hall)

Dozens if not hundreds of works of art are displayed throughout the UW campus. Each one has a story to tell and many tell a story from Washington’s history. In the case of one piece, that story is also a bit of a mystery. In this UW 360 story, follow one researcher’s dive into the Labor Archives of Washington to uncover the story of how a mural came to hang in UW’s Kane Hall.

Gigi Peterson, associate professor, History, SUNY Cortland
Erasmo Gamboa, associate professor, American Ethnic Studies, adjunct professor, History, UW

Labor Archives: To Be an Academic-Josué Estrada Uncovers Suprising History of Latino Voting Rights Struggles in Washington State

Josué Estrada shares his journey towards a PhD degree in history from the University of Washington. From his personal story that inspires his desire to help others to the invaluable resources and opportunities that are available at the UW. Estrada’s work has uncovered a surprising history of Latinos fighting to overcome disenfranchisement and to gain voting rights for Latinos in Washington State and nationwide.

Josué Estrada, PhD candidate, Department of History, UW
Victor Silverman, professor, History and American Studies, Pomona College
Michael McCann, professor, Department of Political Science, director, Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, UW

For a full list of Labor Archives of Washington press coverage, publicity, and events, please click here.

New episode of Labor Archives of Washington’s radio segment radio segment on Seattle labor, peace, feminist activist Irene Hull

The latest episode of the Labor Archives of Washington’s regular segment on the KSVR radio show We Do the Work is now streaming online via KSVR and Public Radio International’s Exchange.
Irene Hull (1913-2011) was a working woman, labor leader, communist, and a peace activist. A shipyard worker in World War II, Hull pushed for legislation to provide child care for working women. A lifelong labor activist, Hull was a sister in the Brotherhood of Bookbinders Local 87. She was a peace and anti-nuclear activist who co-founded the Seattle chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) in 1973 and the Seattle chapter of Jobs With Justice (JWJ) in the 1980s. Her service to the labor movement of Washington State was legendary and she was honored by both the King County Labor Council and the Washington State Labor Council, which gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award at its 2002 convention. Hull was recipient of the 2008 Mother Jones Award. Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, the city’s first African American mayor, proclaimed Sept. 7, 1996 “Irene Hull Day.”

The regular segment, called “Learn Yourself”, features Labor Archivist Conor Casey (Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections) being interviewed about a history topic by host Mike Dumovich with an emphasis on archival collections and secondary sources related to the topic in the hopes that it will inspire people to learn more about labor history on their own.

Links to Other Episodes in the Series [Listen here: https://beta.prx.org/series/33458%5D:

Links to Other Episodes in the Series:

For more information, click on the following links:

Primary Source Collections

Irene B. Hull papers, 1933-2006. Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collection. http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv45401/op=fstyle.aspx?t=k&q=WAUHullIreneB3783.xml

Hull, Irene. “Irene Hull Oral History,” Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project

http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/hull_interview.shtml

Newspaper Articles

Seattle Times “Irene Hull: 60-plus years of avid political activism” http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010705&slug=irenehull05m

Obituaries

Seattle Times “Irene Hull, longtime labor-rights advocate, dies at 98”

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/irene-hull-longtime-labor-rights-advocate-dies-at-98/

People’s Daily World. “Labor stalwart Irene Hull dies at 98”

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/labor-stalwart-irene-hull-dies-at-9/

New episode of Labor Archives of Washington’s radio segment on journalist and activist Anna Louise Strong

The latest episode of the Labor Archives of Washington’s regular segment on the KSVR radio show We Do the Work is now streaming online via KSVR and Public Radio International’s Exchange.

This ‘Learn Yourself’ will focus on Anna Louise Strong, a 20th-century American journalist, activist, and supporter of the labor movement who participated in the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Strong’s papers are one of the highlights of the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.

Links to Other Episodes in the Series:

For more information, click on the following links:

Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Anna Louise Strong Papers, 1885 1971. 24.11 cubic feet (43 boxes, 3 packages, 3 folders). 14 microfilm reels. http://lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/laws Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington].

University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Strong Family Papers. 1832–1994. 1.46 linear feet. http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/view?docId=Strongfamily0958.xml

Sydney Strong Papers. 1860–1938. 5.75 linear feet plus 4 ephemeral items. Contains material collected by Sydney Strong about his daughter, Anna Louise. http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/view?docId=StrongSydney0959.xml

Clayton Van Lydegraf Papers.1944–1991. 46.74 linear feet, including 2 sound cassettes. Contains correspondence between Van Lydegraf and Strong from 1967–1970. http://digital.lib.washington.edu/findingaids/view?docId=VanLydegrafClayton1341.xml

Digital Archives of Primary Sources

Labor Archives Portal of the UW Libraries Digital Collections contains hundreds of letter and writings by Strong and correspondence between her and family members. We digitized it several years ago. http://content.lib.washington.edu/portals/law/index.html

Anna Louise Strong Archive at marxists.org https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/index.htm

Autobiography

(1935). I Change Worlds: the Remaking of an American. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Secondary Sources:

Andrews, Mildred. “Strong, Anna Louise (1885-1970)” HistoryLink.org http://www.historylink.org/File/255

“Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong” https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/witness-revolution

Jackson, Rebecca, “The Politics of Gender in the Writings of Anna Louise Strong,” Seattle General Strike Project, 1999. http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/jackson.shtml

O’Connor, Harvey. “Revolution in Seattle: A Memoir” (Monthly Review Press, 1964; Haymarket Books, 2009)

Strong, Tracy B. and Helene Keysser, “Right in Her Soul: The Life of Anna Louise Strong” (Random House, 1983)

Primary Source Collections

Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections

Irene B. Hull papers, 1933-2006. Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collection. archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv45401/op=fstyle.aspx?t=k&q=WAUHullIreneB3783.xml

Hull, Irene. “Irene Hull Oral History,” Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project

http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/hull_interview.shtml

Newspaper Articles

Seattle Times “Irene Hull: 60-plus years of avid political activism” http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010705&slug=irenehull05m

Obituaries

Seattle Times “Irene Hull, longtime labor-rights advocate, dies at 98”

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/irene-hull-longtime-labor-rights-advocate-dies-at-98/

People’s Daily World. “Labor stalwart Irene Hull dies at 98”

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/labor-stalwart-irene-hull-dies-at-9/

New episode of Labor Archives of Washington’s radio show on women’s labor history, “Women in the Trades” exhibit

The latest episode of the Labor Archives of Washington’s regular segment on the KSVR radio show We Do the Work is now streaming online via KSVR and Public Radio International’s Exchange.

This ‘Learn Yourself’ will be about the women’s labor history, woman workers and leaders. In this segment, special guest Assistant Labor Archivist Crystal Rodgers reports back about a pop-up exhibit she curated on “Women in the Trades”, employing LAW’s collections relating to working women in the building trades.

Special guest Crystal Rogers, assistant archivist for the Labor Archives of Washington, Part 1 [Crystal Rodgers reports on LAW’s “Women in the Trades Exhibit”]

Links to Other Episodes in the Series:

New episodes of Labor Archives of Washington’s radio show on Pablo O’Higgins Mural, UW Student Activists, and Ship Scalers Union now streaming online

The latest episode of the Labor Archives of Washington’s regular segment on the KSVR radio show We Do the Work is now streaming online via KSVR and Public Radio International’s Exchange.

This ‘Learn Yourself’ will be about the Ship Scalers Union, UW student activists, and the Pablo O’Higgins mural “The Struggle Against Racial Discrimination”, which hangs in Kane Hall at the UW Seattle campus.

Pablo O’Higgins, Chicano Student Activists, and the Ship Scalers’ Mural Conor Casey, Labor Archivist for the Labor Archives of Washington, Gigi Peterson, Author & Historian, Part 1

Pablo O’Higgins, Chicano Student Activists, and the Ship Scalers’ Mural: Conor Casey, Labor Archivist for the Labor Archives of Washington, Gigi Peterson, Author & Historian, Part 2

For more information, go Pablo O’Higgins and Ship Scalers Union or read Becoming Pablo O’Higgins by Susan Vogel or to learn more about Gigi Peterson, go to http://www2.cortland.edu/departments/history/faculty-staff-detail.dot?fsid=%20263200 , to read her older article in Labor, https://www.lawcha.org/labor-studies-in-working-class-history.

Links to Other Episodes in the Series:

Latest Episode of Labor Archives’ TV Segment Focuses on Intersection of Labor, Civil Rights, and Art

LaborArchives_banner header final SMALLER

images
In Fall 2016, the Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections, launched a 10-episode segment on UW360, a University of Washington television program. These stories, which highlight LAW’s collections and researchers, air on KOMO, UWTV, and are available on various online media channels thereafter. Each segment in designed to highlight the collections and activities of the Labor Archives and of the UW Libraries Special Collections, as well as the students, researchers, and communities we serve.

The most current episode focuses on the story of Mexican muralist Pablo O’Higgins mural “The Struggle Against Racial Discrimination” on the second floor of Kane Hall and how it relates to the racially progressive Ship Scalers’ Union and Chicano activists at UW. Follow one researcher’s dive into the Labor Archives of Washington to uncover the story of how a mural came to hang in UW’s Kane Hall.

Featuring: Gigi Peterson, associate professor, History, SUNY Cortland
Erasmo Gamboa, associate professor, American Ethnic Studies, adjunct professor, History, UW

See full list of episodes below!

List of Episodes
Labor Archives of Washington Overview

Labor Archives: Minimum Wage Archivists (The SeaTac Seattle Minimum Wage History Project)

Gigi Peterson, associate professor, History, SUNY Cortland
Erasmo Gamboa, associate professor, American Ethnic Studies, adjunct professor, History, UW

For a full list of Labor Archives of Washington press coverage, publicity, and events, please click here.

New Digital Collection: The Richard V. Correll prints and papers

Richard_V_Correll_in_studio_1953 (1) — Richard Correll in his studio painting Paul Bunyan, a part of a series of paintings created for the Federal Art Project of the WPA, ca. 1938-1940.

The Labor Archives of Washington is excited to announce that the prints and papers of famous West Coast artist, Richard V. Correll, are now viewable (almost) in its entirety, on the UW Libraries Digital Collections site! Consisting primarily of original artwork created by Correll, including a variety of prints, original drawings, and paintings, the collection contains nearly the full body of his work! This collection truly demonstrates the expansiveness of his artistry both in technique and subject matter, encompassing themes of working people, civil rights, and social justice as well as nature scenes, figure drawings, Paul Bunyan, and a scrapbook of holiday cards spanning over 39 years.

*Fire Hose/Fight Back*, 1971 (linocut print)

In 2012-2013, the Labor Archives spotlighted Correll’s work in the exhibit, Images of Labor and Social Justice: The Art of Richard V. Correll. You can now view a digital version of this exhibit as well as access a web portal to the full digital collection on the Labor Archives of Washington’s Digital Resources Guide. (We even have a portable version of the physical exhibit, enabling us to take Images of Labor and Social Justice on the road!)

laborarchivists_wslc-convention — Our portable Correll exhibit on display at the WA State Labor Council Convention in July 2017! (Feat. Labor Archivist, Conor Casey, and Assistant Labor Archivist, Crystal Rodgers)

The collection also includes several sketchbooks and audio recordings of an oral history interview with Correll from 1979, to be digitized, as well as books and a small series of paper ephemera, photographs, and other published material about Correll’s life and artwork. Three cd-roms donated to us with the collection contain photographs of Correll as well as additional digital photographs of his prints and illustrations. Want to learn more about the collection in its entirety? Check out the online finding aid on Archives West!

Divers_1986 — Divers, 1986 (woodcut/collage print)

And if you’d like more background information about this prolific artist, Labor Archivist Conor Casey talks about Correll’s life and work in the May 2013 interview on KUOW and KBCS during the Northwest Folklife Festival as well as July 2016’s “Learn Yourself”, a segment of KSVR Studio’s We Do The Work radio show. Seattle’s weekly publication, the Stranger, also spotlighted the collection in an article published in February 2013!

For any specific questions about the Correll prints and papers or other labor collections at the LAW, contact Labor Archivist Conor Casey! Interested more generally in conducting research at the UW Libraries Special Collections? View our website for more information about hours and how to prepare for your visit!

“Past Forward”: Labor Archives latest exhibit on display at the LERC!

The exhibit I curated for the Harry Bridges Labor Center for Labor Studies and the Washington State Labor Education and Research Center partnership is titled Past Forward: Snapshots of Social Justice Labor Organizing and looks at ten moments throughout the history of labor organizing in the Pacific Northwest. Organized around four progressive issues, the exhibit covers a wide range of both organized labor and labor activists’ social justice victories. To gather the stories that are told in the exhibit, I explored collections suggested by Conor Casey, the Labor Archivist and Director of Labor Archives of Washington, UW Libraries Special Collections; spoke with other labor researchers at the UW; and read up on labor history in our area using resources such as the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. The exhibit drew heavily on the collections of the Labor Archives. There are so many interesting stories to be told, and I was very excited to be able to highlight one of the earliest multicultural coalitions which fought the anti-miscegenation laws introduced in our state in the 1930s as wells as to bring the exhibit all the way to this year by including the Seattle Womxn’s March in January. Researching, curating, and writing this exhibit has contributed to my education, and it has been truly inspiring to learn about and re-visit the struggles of labor activists around race, gender, wage, and international human rights here in our region. rachel exhibit 3

– Post by Student Curator, Rachel Townsend

You can view the exhibit at the Washington State Labor Education and Research Center, located on the South Seattle College Georgetown campus (6737 Corson Ave. S, Building B, outside of Room 106).

Help document May 1 marches, strikes, and actions by donating photos, video, signs

20150501-LJ-mayday-4 maydayposterfinalespanol4-1-17

The UW Libraries Special Collections and its Labor Archives of Washington are documenting and collecting items from the upcoming May 1, 2017, marches in the Puget Sound region.

We are interested in your:

► Photographs and video of signs and crowd scenes. High-resolution files from DSLR cameras are preferred, but they will accept camera phone images. Please review your images and edit out blurry or repetitive images. To make submissions, Email Conor Casey, Labor Archivist, and in the email:

In the email title or text, note that submissions are for a labor or labor-related organization and name the organization/banner you marched behind
That they are destined for the Labor Archives of Washington’s digital collections.

► Labor-related physical signs and flyers used in the march. Email Conor Casey, UW Libraries Labor Archivist Conor Casey, to arrange for delivery pickup of your items.

You will be required to sign a donor form for any materials given to the UW Libraries. This form allows future researchers to use your images or materials in books, documentaries, etc. If you have questions about the donor form or copyright, email Conor Casey.

For general questions, Email Conor Casey, .