Download our Logo
Vol. 25:3 ISSN 0160-8460 Fall 1997
"Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives"
The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives is currently engaged in a two-year project to locate, preserve, and make accessible records which document the labor history of New York City, funded in part by NHPRC Grant No. 96-063. The "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives" Labor Records Project has as its goal the appraisal and accessioning of these records, subject to successful negotiations with the present owners. The records collections were identified by the Harry Von Arsdale Labor Documentation Project over the past decade as of vital importance in documenting New York's labor history.
The four largest collections in question document labor activities in the newspaper, hotel, and baking industries. They constitute the records of the Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers, Local 3; the New York Newspaper Guild, Local 3; the Hotel, Motel, Restaurant, and Club Workers and Bartenders International Union, Local 6; and the New York Hotel Trades Council. The 30 other smaller collections document labor activities in the building trades and other underdocumented sectors.
Janet Greene was hired as project archivist in April 1996. Working together with Wagner Archivist Debra E. Bernhardt, she checked on the status of the four major collections, and found that changes had taken place since the records were surveyed by the earlier project. A basement flood had destroyed a portion of the Newspaper Guild records, while materials in the other three collections had been moved from their original locations, and some had been discarded. The Newspaper Guild records that remained had not been moved, so the earlier survey was still adequate, but the other three collections had to be resurveyed.
Negotiations having been successful, some 70 linear feet of the Newspaper Guild, Local 3, and 58 linear feet of Bakers Local 3 records were transferred to the Wagner processing facilities, made available by the Archives' host institution, New York University's Tamiment Institute Library. The project also anticipated the transfer of some 300 linear feet of Hotel (HERE Local 6) records.
The processing of the records has proceeded at a steady pace, despite the need to protect staff members from the metal dust and other solid particles present in the Newspaper Guild collection, which caused respiratory and skin problems. NYU provided a fume scrubber to alleviate this problem, and supplemented the support staff needed for the project. Substantial progress has been made in sorting and rehousing the Newspaper Guild and Bakers records, and work on four of the smaller collections has been completed. HERE Local 6 assisted the project by arranging for two summer interns to help resurvey its records.
In addition, 10 oral histories have been completed to supplement the collections, including four from the Bakers union and three from the hotel trades. Photographs found during processing, as well as some encapsulated documents, have been part of several presentations by project staff members to NYU research methods classes. The project has caused retirees' organizations at the Hotel Trades Council and HERE Local 6 to become more interested in the Archives and its work. All of which makes it possible for the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives to do an even better job of documenting the history of New York's workers and their organizations.
Project archivist Janet Greene joins staff members in examining photographic negatives. Photograph by Debra E. Bernhardt, courtesy of the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.
