Register of the James Daugherty Collection, 1937-1980

Processed by Patricia Martinez; machine-readable finding aid created by Xiuzhi Zhou
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
6120 S. Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90044
Phone: (323) 759-6063
Fax: (323) 759-2252
Email: archives@socallib.org
URL: http://www.socallib.org
© 1999
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. All rights reserved.

Register of the James Daugherty Collection, 1937-1980

Collection number: MSS 017

Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research

Los Angeles, California

Contact Information:

  • Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
  • 6120 S. Vermont Avenue
  • Los Angeles, California 90044
  • Phone: (323) 759-6063
  • Fax: (323) 759-2252
  • Email: archives@socallib.org
  • URL: http://www.socallib.org
Processed by:
Patricia Martinez
Date Completed:
December 1995
Encoded by:
Xiuzhi Zhou
© 1999 Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. All rights reserved.

Descriptive Summary

Title: James Daugherty Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1937-1980
Collection number: MSS 017
Creator: Daugherty, James
Extent: 2 cartons
Repository: Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research.
Los Angeles, California
Language: English.

Administrative Information

Access

The collection is available for research only at the Library's facility in Los Angeles.  The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Researchers are encouraged to call or email the Library indicating the nature of their research query prior to making a visit.

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. Researchers may make single copies of any portion of the collection, but publication from the collection will be allowed only with the express written permission of the Library's director. It is not necessary to obtain written permission to quote from a collection. When the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research gives permission for publication, it is as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], James Daugherty Collection, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.

Biographical Sketch

James L. Daugherty (b. 1910) began his labor activism in his twenties when he was fired from an F.W. Woolworth store in Los Angeles for supporting the store employees in their campaign for better working conditions. He took a job with the Southern California Gas Company and soon became involved with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE), becoming president of UE Local 1414. A grassroots activist in the growing industrial union movement, he joined the Utility Workers Organizing Committee, one of the organizing committees affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) which took off in L.A. in the late 1930s. In the Los Angeles and California CIO organizations, Daugherty worked alongside L.A. CIO leader Phillip (Slim) Connelly, in an aggressive campaign to bring large numbers of L.A. workers into CIO unions. The Utility Workers Organizing Committee became the Utility Workers of America, CIO.
In 1946, Daugherty became president of the California CIO, a leadership position that was cut short when the U.S. labor movement was caught up in the anti-communism that followed World War II. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Law required union members to sign non-communist affidavits. Along with Harry Bridges, president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and western regional CIO leader, Daugherty resisted the assault on the left CIO unions, several of which were expelled from the CIO. The charter of the California CIO was revoked by the national CIO in 1949.
After the debacle of the CIO, Daugherty worked as an organizer for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, leading several Mine Mill shops into the UE. Laid off from UE, Daugherty eventually returned to Los Angeles. Retired from the labor movement, he continued to make himself available to young labor activists and assisted Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research founder Emil Freed in expanding the library's labor holdings.
In 1991, the UCLA Oral History Program made an oral history interview with Daugherty conducted by Myrna Donahoe in 1987 and 1988, available for research. The transcript of it, James L. Daugherty: Utilities Workers, the UE, and the CIO, is deposited in the Special Collections Department of the UCLA University Research Library. Researchers will want to consult that for a more detailed biography of Daugherty's life of labor activism, his involvement with the Communist Party (CP), and his view of the relationship between the CP and the organized labor movement.

Scope and Content

The papers described (two cartons) are part of a larger James L. Daugherty Collection at the Library. The priority was to process his labor papers that relate most to Los Angeles. They are primarily files he maintained while he was a leader in the L.A. CIO. In Box 1, researchers will find documentation on the California CIO Council and the Los Angeles CIO primarily in the period 1946-1950, when the Cold War backlash against Left-led unions was at its height. In Box 2, the Utility Workers of America, CIO files, 1940-1948, complement the CIO files in Box 1. Together these files provide a glimpse into the politics of the local and national labor movement at a time when the mass industrial organizing of the original CIO had come to a near standstill in the face of national and international Cold War politics.
Eventually Daugherty's files on the UE and Mine, Mill Smelter unions will be processed and added to the CIO and Utility Workers papers described to date. In addition to his own papers, Daugherty rescued many labor pamphlets, periodicals, and files from the old Los Angeles CIO building at Avalon and Slauson when it was closed down. These were given to the Southern California Library where they became the core of the labor collection at SCL.
See related SCL Collection: California CIO Council Union Research and Information Services.

Related Collection

Title: California CIO Council Union Research and Information Services Records, 1935-1956.
Title: Shevy Wallace Healey Papers (CIO Los Angeles Organizing), 1938-1962.
Title: Standard Coil Organizing Campaign Collection (UE vs. IUE-CIO), 1949-1954, n.d..
Title: Julius Mel Reich Labor Archives Collection.

 

CORRESPONDENCE

Box 1, Folder 1-4

Correspondence 1651, 1953, 1955-1958, 1959, 1960, 1962-1963, 1969-1970, [N.D.]

 

CALIFORNIA CIO COUNCIL

Box 1, Folder 5

Annual Convention 1949

Box 1, Folder 6

Executive Board, Meetings 1946-1949

Box 1, Folder 7

Correspondence 1948-1950

Box 1, Folder 8

Cost of Living 1946, 1947

Box 1, Folder 9

Declarations 1949

Box 1, Folder 10

Facts and Figures 1945-1946

Box 1, Folder 11

Leaflets 1948, [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 12

Motions 1949

Box 1, Folder 13

Oil Workers International Union 1949

Box 1, Folder 14

Pamphlets 1945, 1947, 1948, [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 15

Political Action 1947-1948

Box 1, Folder 16

Publications, Miscellaneous 1952

Box 1, Folder 17

Research Department 1946-1948

Box 1, Folder 18

Resolutions 1948, [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 19

Revocation of Charter 1949-1950

Box 1, Folder 20

Speeches 1937, 1944, 1949

Box 1, Folder 21

Taft-Hartley Law 1947, 1948

Box 1, Folder 22

State Conferences [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 23

Statements 1947, 1948, 1954

Box 1, Folder 24

Wage Fight 1948

Box 1, Folder 25

Wage Order and Sanitary Regulations [N.D.]

 

LOS ANGELES CIO

Box 1, Folder 26

Council Report 1948

Box 1, Folder 27

Miscellaneous 1948, 1949

Box 1, Folder 28

Pamphlets/ Leaflets 1948, [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 29

Political Action

Box 1, Folder 30

Reunification 1949

Box 1, Folder 31

Speeches 1946

 

UNION FILES

Box 1, Folder 32-34

International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union

Box 1, Folder 32

Resolutions 1949, 1957, 1959

Box 1, Folder 33

Statement Of Policy 1949, 1957, 1959

Box 1, Folder 34

Un-American Activities Committee, Local 6, 1953

Box 1, Folder 35

Oil Workers International Union Organizing Campaign

Box 1, Folder 35

CIO News 1942, 1943, [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 36-43

United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America

Box 1, Folder 36

Agreements, Constitutions, Reports and Resolutions 1977, 1980

Box 1, Folder 37

Chrysler Local 230-1950, 1972

Box 1, Folder 38

The Local 216 Assembler 1980

Box 1, Folder 39

Local 230, Feather Merchant1965-1966

Box 1, Folder 40

Local 230, Feather Merchant1967-1969, 1971

Box 1, Folder 41

Schrade, Paul 1972

Box 1, Folder 42

UAW Solidarity 1973, 1983

Box 1, Folder 43

Constitutions and By-Laws [N.D.]

Box 1, Folder 44-45

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Of America

Box 1, Folder 44

Correspondence 1969

Box 1, Folder 45

Shop Chairmen's Manual, Local 735- [N.D.]

 

UTILITY WORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO

Box 2, Folder 1

Affidavit 1947

Box 2, Folder 2

Annual Conventions 1941, 1943, 1948

Box 2, Folder 3

Clippings 1947

Box 2, Folder 4

Conferences and Meetings, Miscellaneous 1946, 1948

Box 2, Folder 5

Constitution [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 6

Constitutional Conferences 1942, 1944, 1946, 1947

Box 2, Folder 7

Convention Proceedings 1945-1948

Box 2, Folder 8

Correspondence 1944-1948

Box 2, Folder 9

Council Conferences 1946, 1948

Box 2, Folder 10

Daugherty, James L. 1947

Box 2, Folder 11

Daugherty, James L., Removal From Office 1947

Box 2, Folder 12

Essays 1949, [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 13

Executive Board, Meetings 1946-1947

Box 2, Folder 14

Executive Board, Meetings 1944, 1947, 1948

Box 2, Folder 15

Insurance Plans [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 16

Leaflets [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 17

Local 132-1940, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948

Box 2, Folder 18

Local 152-1941, 1946

Box 2, Folder 19

Local 324, Retail Clerks Union 1968

Box 2, Folder 20

Manuals [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 21

Membership Minutes 1948

Box 2, Folder 22

Publications, Miscellaneous 1947

Box 2, Folder 23

Regional Conferences 1944, 1945, 1947

Box 2, Folder 24

Reports and Statements 1946, 1947

Box 2, Folder 25

Resolutions [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 26

Southern California Gas Company 1947-1948

Box 2, Folder 27

Speeches 1948

Box 2, Folder 28

State Conferences 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948

Box 2, Folder 29

Stewards [N.D.]

Box 2, Folder 30

Taft-Hartley Law 1947

Box 2, Folder 31

Third Party 1947

Box 2, Folder 32

Utilities Council of Southern California 1948

Box 2, Folder 33

Wage Action Policy Committee 1946-1948