Description
This collection documents Dr. Corinne Gilb's work in her position as the first Director of the Regional Cultural History Project,
the forerunner of the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). The collection
documents early methodology for conducting oral histories and includes interviews, conducted for the Institute of Industrial
Relations at UC Berkeley, of union members, employers, and professionals in the labor relations field. The histories describe
the daily work of typographers, teamsters, and retail clerks from the early 1900s to the 1950s, and provide a detailed history
of San Francisco Bay Area labor relations during that period.
Background
Dr. Corinne Lathrop Gilb (1925-2003), a native of Canada, came to the United States with her family at the age of 8. She attained
her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington, and her Ph.D. from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
She then moved to California where she earned a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley),
and attended Boalt Hall School of Law for 3 years. From 1953 to 1957, Dr. Gilb established and directed the Regional Cultural
Oral History Project, later known as the Regional Oral History Office (ROHO), at UC Berkeley. In 1957, she accepted a position
at the Institute of Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley where she was responsible for creating an oral history program in
the field of labor relations. Dr. Gilb conducted interviews not only with key figures in the labor movement, but also with
veteran workers, local union members, lawyers, judges, anthropologists, sociologists, and other active participants in labor
relations.
Between 1964 and 1968, Dr. Gilb taught courses in history both at Mills College and San Francisco State University. In 1969,
after returning from several months in Paris on a Guggenheim Scholarship, she was invited to join the history department at
Wayne State University in Detroit. During her tenure at Wayne State University, Dr. Gilb remained active as a writer and public
speaker and, from 1979 to 1985, also served as Planning Director for the City of Detroit.
After retiring from Wayne State University in 1994 as Professor Emeritus, Dr. Gilb and her husband, Tyrell Gilb, moved to
Atherton, California where she founded Atherton Press, Ltd. for academic publications.
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote
from materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf
of the Labor Archives and Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder, which must be obtained by the reader.