Collections

Research papers compiled by history professor Kenneth Fones-Wolf for his book "Glass Towns", a work that focuses on the West Virginia towns of Moundsville, Clarksburg, and Fairmont as case studies to illuminate the history of the glass industry in a local as well as transnational context. The collection includes typescript and manuscript research notes, articles and research papers, union newsletters, newspaper clippings, hearing transcripts, photographs, and other material. Most of the collection consists of photocopies. There are folders containing research regarding census statistics, the content of the industry newsletter "National Glass Budget", and the 1936-1937 strike. Printed material includes proceedings of the first convention of the Window Glass Cutters League of America (1923), and of a joint conference between three glass cutter unions (1926); as well as pamphlets entitled "The Socialist Victory in Adamston, West Virginia" and "Marion County Centennial Yearbook, 1863-1963". There are also copies of nine reels of microfilm from the Ohio Historical Society of the papers of Joseph Slight (1874-1957) regarding the Knights of Labor and the National Window Glass Workers Union. For additional research materials used for the book, regarding American Flint Glass Workers' Union, Local 10, and the Fostoria Glass Company, please see A&M 2642 addendum 2013/02/25.

Transcript of an interview by Richard Hadsell with Major W.P. Tams, Jr., former mine operator in the Winding Gulf coal mining region. Tams discusses his early days in coal mining, the opening of the Kanawha coal region, and coal operators and union officials such as: E.J. Berwind, Joe Beury, George Collins, Jarius Collins, Justus Collins, John J. Cornwell, Samuel Dixon, Elias Hatfield, Troy Hatfield, Isaac Mann, S.T. Patterson, J.A. Renahan, James O. Watts, and George Wolfe. Other individuals mentioned include: Henry D. Hatfield, John L. Lewis, John Mitchell, Fred Mooney, Bob Patterson, and "Mother" Mary Jones. Tams also discusses the Winding Gulf Collieries, the Beaver Coal Co., the Smokeless Coal Field, the N&W Railroad, the C&O Railroad, the Virginian Railroad, Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, unions and strikes, racial relations, blacks, scrip, company stores, Atwater, and Castner, Curran and Bullitt.

Correspondence, circulars, and printed material concerning organization of employees at Cabell-Huntington Hospital into Local 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, 1975-79. There are statements concerning unionization by the hospital administrator, leaflets and circulars distributed by employees of Cabell-Huntington Hospital, newsletters of Local 1199, and the printed contract between the Hospital's executive director and Local 1199 for the period from Oct. 22, 1977 to Oct. 21, 1979.

A scrapbook and personal diary of Volney Andrews, one-time president of Local 175, covering the years 1938-1949. There is material on disputes over the legitimacy of the AFL and the CIO especially as it was reflected in state regional labor councils and jurisdictional struggles in West Virginia between the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Mine Workers of America. Also mentioned are political concerns such as elections, congressional investigations of labor and foreign trade bills, state labor legislative proposals and charges of corruption in West Virginia's handling of the WPA. There is mention of the 1940 Charleston construction trades strike and also of that city's segregated neighborhood housing projects as well as material reflecting the predominant racist attitudes of that era. Places mentioned are Bluefield, Charleston, Fairmont, Grafton, Logan, Morgantown, and Wheeling. People mentioned are Van A. Bittner, Tom Cairnes, F.J. Dillon, William Green, Rush D. Holt, John L. Lewis, Joe Ozanic, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Frank W. Snyder.