n. (also labour archives)a repository that holds records maintained to document the activities of a unionLewinson 1954, 20In this report, the term “labor archives” is confined to the official records of the history, organization, and functioning of Government agencies dealing with labor matters, and of labor organizations, wherever found.Blake 2007, 130For the first half of the twentieth century, modest efforts to collect labor records were firmly rooted in the historical manuscripts tradition. By the 1960s, the flourishing public archives programs and the emergence of the new social history spurred a boom in labor archives. This boom ended in the 1980s, as unions faced tougher times and many institutions cut their support for archives programs. Today, the survival of labor archives programs depends on archivists forging a closer relationship with the labor movement, especially by establishing records- and knowledge-management partnerships.Blake 2007, 135The only positive development for labor archives was the founding of the National Archives and its acquisition of the Department of Labor records in the late 1930s. Collecting union organizational records is, however, outside the mission of the National Archives, which strictly preserves only government documents.Blake 2007, 143The [Walter P.] Reuther Library’s second major innovation entailed the integration of its archival program with union records management. Beginning with the UAW, the Reuther staff became advisors to labor organizations regarding the design and implementation of records management programs. Consequently, the acquisition of union material by the library was governed by formal legal agreements, providing for well-organized, regularly scheduled transfers of official records. This complementary records management program was unique among labor archives programs and remains a standard for labor archives today.Nash 2010a, 3Most of these studies made extensive use of union archives: correspondence files of union leaders, papers of union organizers, grievance and arbitration files, and records of organizing departments.Nash 2010a, 7It was under [Richard] Ely and [John R.] Commons’s direction that the Wisconsin Historical Society became the first repository in the United States to launch a labor archives program. Between 1904 and 1914 these labor economists became the driving force behind a documentary initiative that resulted in the acquisition of thirteen labor collections. The acquisition and appraisal strategies put into place by the Historical Society were strongly influenced by Commons and Ely’s concept of labor history as institutional history and the idea that the working-class experience could only be understood by studying the institutional history of the trade unions. Labor archivists of this era operated within this organizational framework. They emphasized the importance of records from administrative offices at the top of the pyramid that documented policy making and the ways unions were organized and functioned (mostly Theodore Schellenberg’s evidential record).Nash 2010a, 11During the 1970s and 1980s, archivists with responsibilities for labor and social history collections revaluated [sic] collecting and appraisal strategies. The organizational synthesis was discarded and with it the preoccupation with documenting the way labor union bureaucracies were organized and functioned. There was now a new awareness of the importance of the informational record as a window into the experiences of ordinary working people. During these years labor archivists developed vertical and horizontal approach to appraisal, seeking to document major functions (including organizing, political action, collective bargaining, grievance, and arbitration) as they were performed at various levels on [sic] organizational pyramid. The idea was to capture departmental and divisional relationships as well as networks of communication. Labor archives repositories also consciously set out to preserve evidence of rank-and-file contributions. As part of this process they sought to develop relationships with locals and districts where the documentary record brought archivists and scholars closer to the shop floor and working-class communities.Hackbart-Dean 2010, 17Labor archives have been collecting the papers of working people and the records of their trade unions and allied organizations since the early years of the twentieth century. Collecting repositories play several overlapping roles, assisting unions in constructing a usable past, preserving the movement’s heritage, culture, and traditions, and making labor archives accessible to the public.
