Collections

Minutes, proceedings, circulars, agreements, constitutions, bylaws, correspondence, and reports of AFGWU Local 10 (Fostoria Glass), including general wage rate lists, contract increase percentages and wage and move rate lists of the punch tumbler and stemware department. Of interest would be the strike threats and agreements in the late 1950s.

Minutes, proceedings, circulars, agreements, constitutions, bylaws, correspondence, and reports of the local union which worked in the stemware and punch tumbler department of Fostoria Glass Company. Addendum of 2013/02/25 includes materials collected by Paul W. Myers (1927-2008), former employee of Fostoria Glass Company and former American Flint Glass Workers Union Representative of Local #10. Includes correspondence, business records, photographs, printed material, ephemera, clippings, an artifact, and a cassette tape. Addendum materials pertain to Fostoria Glass Company and American Flint Glass Workers Union, mostly Local Union #10 but also #507, of Moundsville. Some of the material in the addendum was used by Dr. Kenneth Fones-Wolf in researching his book, Glass Towns. For a collection of his research papers, please see A&M 5170. For more information on the addendum, see the Scope and Content Note.

Research papers of Festus P. Summers (1895-1971), a historian who served on the faculty of West Virginia University from 1932 to 1965 and as chairman of the history department from 1946 to 1962. Collection includes photocopied correspondence, articles, and typescripts, as well as manuscript notes. Many of the photocopies appear to have been made from Archives and Manuscript collections at the West Virginia and Regional History Center, including A&M 873, A&M 1661, A&M 1824, and A&M 2141. Topics include the West Virginia coal mine wars (1912-1927); West Virginia tax reform and economy (1900s-1950s); and individuals related to coal mining, labor, and legislation (1902-1971). These individuals include Van A. Bittner, W.E. Chilton, Justus Collins (President of Winding Gulf Colliery Company), Walter S. Hallanan, Henry D. Hatfield, M.M. Neely, C.E. Smith, and Walter R. Thurmond. Also included is a copy of a dissertation titled "Rush Dew Holt: The Boy Senator, 1905-1942," by William Ellis Coffey of WVU (1970), and a typescript copy of a manuscript by Dr. James Morton Callahan titled "History of West Virginia University: Problems and Policies." The Callahan typescript also includes annotations by Summers (ca. 1966).

Mr. Pryzbylinski, a resident of Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, was a coal miner and actively promoted trade unionism and socialism in his area from about 1915 to 1930. When many mines in the anthracite coal fields closed in the early 1930s, he stopped working as a miner and became engaged in radio repair work. He was also interested in the co-operative movement. He encouraged this movement in the Mt. Carmel area and was president of the local co-operative. The collection includes 363 pamphlets concerning socialism, trade unionism, and the welfare of the working class. There are also clippings and magazine articles on these subjects. Included is a copy of the National Berger Memorial Edition of the Milwaukee Leader from August 7, 1930, and a typescript mimeograph copy of the proceedings of a meeting entitled "Who is Calvin Coolidge?" chaired by Oswald Garrison Villard, April 12, 1927. This group of materials comprises 8 boxes. Two boxes contain the material collected by Mr. Pryzbylinski on the co-operative movement. Includes the cooperative league's publication, Cooperation, and Consumer cooperation for 1929-1939; cooperative Association yearbooks; 67 pamphlets on the cooperative movement; newspaper and magazine clippings; and one bound volume, no. IX, of the Cooperative Builder, published in Superior, Wisconsin, for 1934.

Assorted AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) pamphlets and other materials distributed by the AFL Dept. of Education in Charleston, West Virginia, between 1949 and 1956. Most of the pamphlets are dated prior to the 1955 merger of the AFL and CIO and pertain chiefly to the work of the American Federation of Labor. Pamphlets provide information about the history of the AFL, labor organizations, the benefits of unions, and the AFL's Committee on Political Education, COPE. Collection also contains newsletters and other labor materials related to the West Virginia State Federation of Labor and state right-to-work laws, including 1955 meeting minutes of the Kanawha Valley Central Labor Union and that union's "We Do Not Patronize" list of businesses that do not employ union members.

This collection contains miscellaneous records regarding history of the coal industry. Types of records include correspondence. See "Scope and Content Note" for additional information regarding material within the collection.

This collection contains LP phonograph albums containing a variety of music, oral history, and musical scores. This box was found unlabeled and might be associated with another collection.

This collection includes the correspondance of Nat Goldman, an auditor for the Textile Workers Union of America CIO. His letters from 1946 through 1949 are addressed to his girlfiend Rebecca "Reba" Baron in New York City, New York, including love letters to her and descriptions of his travels and work for the union. He writes about the innerworkings of locations and dissenment within the union. Most of the letters are from Virginia, but there are a few from his travels to Tennessee, Conecticut, and Wisconsin.