Collection Guide
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Guide to the Fred Ross Papers,
1910-1992
M0812
M0812
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Table of contents
Title: Fred Ross papers,
Identifier/Call Number: M0812
Contributing Institution:
Dept. of Special Collections & University Archives
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
22.0 Linear feet
(32 boxes, 1 flat box)
Date (inclusive): 1910-1992
Prominent institutions in the collection include:
- American Council on Race Relations (ACRR)
- AFL-CIO
- Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC)
- California Federation for Civic Unity (CFCU)
- Central America Peace Education Training Project
- Community Action Training Center (CATC)
- Community Service Organization (CSO)
- Guadalupe Organization, Inc. (GO)
- Industrial Areas Foundation
- LULAC
- National Farm Worker Ministry
- National Farm Workers' Association (NFWA)
- National Farm Workers' Union (NFWU)
- NSO
- Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign
- State Relief Administration (SRA)
- Survival Institute
- Teamsters
- United Farm Workers (UFW)
- War Relocation Authority (WRA)
Prominent or frequently-mentioned individuals include:
- John Adler
- Saul Alinsky
- Dan Bacar
- Bill Beachy
- Jenny Brashear
- Dave Burciaga
- Cesar Chavez
- Andy Coe
- [Ellie] Cohen
- Greg Costello
- Joe Deety
- Chris Donoughue
- Joe Dukes
- Nancy Elliot
- Dianne Feinstein
- Mike Ganley
- Marshall Ganz
- Warren Hagstrom
- Bob Hardie
- Chirs Hartmire
- H. Hasawara
- Hayes
- Ralph Helstein
- Dolores Huerta
- Nick Jones
- Dave Koeler
- Ignacio ("Nacho") Lopez
- Mark Lyons
- Barbara Macry
- David Martinez
- Mary McCarthy
- Blain McGowan
- Eliseo Medina
- Dolores Mendoza
- Ray Mork
- Henry Nava
- Frank Ortiz
- Bob Parcel
- Lois Pryner
- Clint Reilly
- Tony Rios
- John Rodrigo
- Arturo Rodriguez
- Edward R. Roybal
- Hector Tarango
- Jo M. Tobin
- Ruth Tuck
- Barbara Wyler
Another small collection of Ross' papers, measuring 1-1/2 linear feet, is held by the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs
at Wayne State University in Detroit. This collection includes daily field activity reports documenting Ross's training of
Chavez as an organizer for the Community Service Organization from 1954 to 1965 and an untitled manuscript, written around
1973, about Chavez and his early work in the organization of farm workers. It is uncertain if duplicates of the Ross materials
in the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs are included in the Stanford collection.
The Ross Papers comprise the personal and professional materials of Fred Ross and occupy approximately 22 linear feet.
The general condition of the papers reflects Ross' peripatetic lifestyle as an organizer. Before being acquired by Stanford,
the Ross papers were stored in various locations; a few of the papers have extensive water and mold damage. Many of the files
and papers are incomplete, break off suddenly, or have had to be reconstructed or reorganized. The general organization of
the papers is also affected by the fact that Ross suffered from Alzheimer's disease at the end of his life. Often he went
back and relabelled files, sometimes erroneously; when these errors were obvious, they were corrected in the folder title.
In going through many of his files, Ross removed items to use for his autobiographical manuscripts and then did not replace
them. This means that some files have obvious gaps. When the missing materials could clearly be identified, they were put
back with the larger files to which they belonged. When the provenance of stray items could not be easily determined, they
were filed by themselves or, when found in a group, filed together with other "missing pieces" under titles such as "misc.
manuscript pages" or "organizing materials (without organization names)." Overall the processor followed the principle of
preserving as much of the original order as possible and leaving it to the individual researcher to determine what may belong
together.
Most of the materials in the collection were put into regular-size manuscript boxes; slightly larger articles were put into
legal-size manuscript boxes that are designated in the collection as "legal." Very large pieces are in oversized boxes marked
"OS."
The Manuscript and Audiotape Series may be the richest for researchers. It is here that Ross' organizing work and personal
experience are most fully documented.
Fred W. Ross was born August 23, 1910 in San Francisco to Fred W. and Daisy C. Ross. He grew up in the Echo Park neighborhood
of Los Angeles and attended Belmont High School until 1929. An English literature and social science major, he graduated from
the University of Southern California in 1937.
Giving up his original plan to become a teacher because he could not find a job during the Depression, Ross became a caseworker
with the state relief administration. In 1939 he became the manager of the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp near Bakersfield, the
same camp John Steinbeck drew on to write The Grapes of Wrath. Ross encouraged the inhabitants to organize themselves. In
1941 he began to work for the War Relocation Authority helping Japanese American internees leave the camps and obtain jobs
and housing.
In 1946 Ross went to work for the American Council on Race Relations to promote "Councils for Civic Unity" in California in
response to the racial tensions that had surfaced during the war. The eight Hispanic Unity Leagues Ross organized fought segregation
in schools and elsewhere. From 1947 to 1952 he worked for Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation. With their support
Ross established the first Community Service Organization in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. In 1952 he met Cesar Chavez,
then a young man in San Jose, and hired him. Both men founded 22 CSO chapters throughout California in the 1950's. As a decades-long
mentor, Ross had a strong influence on Chavez, who remembered that "as time went on, Fred became sort of my hero. I saw him
organize and I wanted to learn."
In 1964 Ross was hired by the National Presbyterian Church to establish a community self-help group in Guadalupe, Arizona,
a poor small town, populated by Yaqui Indians and Mexican Americans, where the church owned much property. The following year,
1965-66, Ross taught community organizing at Syracuse University in the first course of its kind. In 1966 Ross began his work
with Cesar Chavez's UFW, training hundreds of organizers. He organized many well-known strikes and boycotts, among them the
Giumarra strike of 1967, the grape boycott of 1968, the lettuce strikes of 1970 and 1973, and the Gallo wine boycott of 1973.
In 1978 Ross directed Jerry Brown's campaign for governor of California. Ross helped to organize the United Domestic Workers
of America and the 1979 Chiquita Banana Boycott. In 1984 he became involved with Nuclear Freeze, Jobs with Peace, CISPES (Committee
in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). He also worked with the anti-interventionist group Neighbor to Neighbor with
his son, Fred., Jr .
Ross developed and taught organizing techniques such as the house meeting. This work is well-documented in the Papers. In
1989 Neighbor to Neighbor published Ross' Axioms for Organizers as a booklet. The same year, El Taller Grafico press (UFW)
pubished Ross' first book, Conquering Goliath: Cesar Chavez at the Beginning.
In 1937 Ross married Yvonne Gregg; they divorced shortly after the birth of their son, Robert, in 1940. Ross married Frances
Gibson in 1943, and they had three children, Julia, Fred, Jr., and Rob. Fred Ross died on September 27, 1992.
[Identification of item] Fred Ross Papers, M 812, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Acquired from Fred Ross, Jr., 1995
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
None.