Posts with the tag: United Mine Workers of America

The Archivist’s Nook: John Brophy – A Pennsylvania Miner’s Life

Even though he had impacted the lives of generations of my family who labored in the coal mines of England, and Scotland, and Pennsylvania, John Brophy is the most important labor leader nobody knows. I did not know who he was before I deposited myself in the Catholic University Archives, home of Brophy’s Papers, in Read More

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The Archivist’s Nook: Speaking Labor to Power – W. B. Wilson

Scottish immigrant and Pennsylvania coal miner, William Bauchop (W. B.) Wilson (1862-1934), became the voice of workers speaking to power as a founder of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) union, the first representative for labor in Congress, and the first secretary of labor in the Woodrow Wilson (no relation) administration. Although not a Read More

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The Archivist’s Nook: Digital Rebirth – Labor Collections at Catholic University

The papers of Terence V. Powderly, John W. Hayes, and John Mitchell, three Gilded Age and Progressive Era labor leaders of national importance are now available online in digital format thanks to a partnership between The Catholic University of America (CUA) and ProQuest’s History Vault subscription service. Securing collections of notable Catholic labor leaders like Read More

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The Archivist’s Nook: Philip Murray – A Pennsylvania Scot in Big Labor’s Court

In 1904, a young coal miner in western Pennsylvania, terminated for fighting with his boss over fraudulent practices, was also evicted from his home and forced to leave town. He sadly observed the workingman “is alone. He has no organization to defend him. He has nowhere to go.”¹ Thereafter, this Catholic immigrant from Scotland, Philip Read More

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The Archivist’s Nook: John Mitchell – Apostle of Labor

May First is a date full of meaning as ‘May Day’, a traditional European spring festival, the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker for Roman Catholics, and International Workers’ Day for leftists. However one marks this day it is certainly an appropriate time to note one of the most important figures in American labor Read More

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The Archivist’s Nook: More Than You Imagine – The Archives at Catholic University

Though there was a museum at The Catholic University of America (CUA) going back to the university’s founding in the late 19th century, the Archives at CUA originated much later as shortly before World War II Msgr. Francis Haas began collecting the papers of important Catholic labor leaders such as Terence Powderly, head of the Read More

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