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Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Collection Overview

Collection Arrangement

Administrative Information

Collection Inventory

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Collection Overview

Biographical Note

The office of president dates from the formation of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) in 1890. The president presided over international union conventions and meetings of the International Executive Board, appointed committees, organizers, and field workers, interpreted the meaning of the union constitution, led wage negotiations, endorsed or denied strikes and work stoppages, ruled on countless individual, local, and district issues, served as the union’s main spokesman for legislative goals and for health and safety concerns, and supervised the editorial stance and news policies of the United Mine Workers Journal. Under John L. Lewis, the presidency of the UMW became one of the most powerful positions in the American labor movement.

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Collection Overview

The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence and subject files generated by John L. Lewis in three capacities: as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) (1920-1960); as head of the Committee for Industrial Organization/Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) from its founding in 1935 to his resignation (1940) and UMW disaffiliation from the CIO in 1942; and as UMW president emeritus. Additional records and materials document the UMW’s re-affiliation with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1944, the internecine struggle of the rival labor federations culminating in the historic AFL-CIO merger agreement (1955), and relations with other unions. There are also substantial runs of presidential correspondence and subject files from Lewis’s successors, Thomas Kennedy (1960-1963), William A. Boyle (1963-1972), Arnold Miller (1972-1979), and Sam Church (1979-1982). Only in the area of wage negotiations are there substantial documents from the decades preceding Lewis’s presidency. (The papers of Lewis’s most important predecessor, UMW president John Mitchell, are at Catholic University.) A nearly complete run of international union constitutions spans the years 1903-2010; there are also numerous district constitutions.

Included among the subject files is a substantial run of printed government hearings. Although these volumes are available electronically, they have been retained because they collectively document the principal concerns and positions of the UMW with regard to twentieth century legislative issues. These issues pertain to prominent topics found within the correspondence and subject files, including coal policy, the perceived threat of nuclear energy, labor practices, the state of the American economy, pensions and benefits, efforts to establish national health care, and ongoing problems related to mine safety and mine-related disease (most notably, black lung). The correspondence and subject files also concern the function and structure of the union, its finances, the president’s leadership in wage negotiations in the anthracite and bituminous regions, his involvement in international affairs, and his responses to communism, dual unionism, and potential rivals such as the Progressive Miners of America.

Prints and negatives found within President’s Office files have been photocopied in their original positions and then moved into cold storage for the sake of preservation. But most UMW photographs reside elsewhere, within either the UMW Journal Office Records or the UMW Photographic, Graphic, and Artifacts Collection.

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Collection Arrangement

The collection is arranged in 14 series: Series 1: Office Files (1900-1997 and undated) Series 2: Correspondence (1929-1967) Series 3: Anthracite Correspondence (1929-1968 and undated) Series 4: Foreign Correspondence (1935-1967) Series 5: Internal Correspondence (1933-1956) Series 6: John L. Lewis Personal Files (1923-1972 and undated) Series 7: President Emeritus Office Correspondence (1949-1969 and undated; bulk 1960-1969) Series 8: President Emeritus General Correspondence (1960-1969) Series 9: President Emeritus Personal files (1937-1973; bulk 1960-1969) Series 10: CIO Files (1924-1962 and undated) Series 11: Government Hearings (1904-1983) Series 12: Wage Negotiations (1898-1983) Series 13: Constitutions (1903-2010) Series 14: Photographs (1916-1997 and undated)

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Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research. Records less than 20 years old shall be made accessible only with the written permission of the designated representative of the donor.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], United Mine Workers of America, President's Office records, HCLA 1823, Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University.

Acquisition Information

Gift of United Mine Workers of America, 1994-2012.

Processing Information

Processed by Barry Kernfeld.

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Collection Inventory

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