Douglass Adair United Farm Workers Collection, 1936, 1956-2015, bulk 1965-1995

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Summary

Creators:
Adair, Douglas, III
Abstract:
Douglass Adair joined the United Farm Workers union in 1965 at the age of 22. He played a key role in organizing the nationwide grape boycott and served as editor, later becoming publisher, of the union's newspaper El Malcriado from 1965 to 1970. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Adair worked in the fields at various California ranches and as a member of the union's legal department. The collection includes correspondence, notes, notebooks, and records documenting Adair's involvement with the union and his employment as a farm worker; clippings and short publications on the union and related topics; and realia, ephemera, and photographs related to the farm workers' rights movement.
Extent:
13.34 Linear Feet (17 boxes)
Language:
English, Spanish, and Arabic.
Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Douglass Adair United Farm Workers Collection, Collection no. 0011, Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection includes correspondence sent to and from Douglass Adair; records documenting Adair's involvement with the United Farm Workers union and his employment as a farm worker at California ranches, including Tenneco-Ducor and the David Freedman Company; clippings and short publications on the union and related topics; and realia, ephemera, and photographs related to the farm workers rights movement.

Biographical / historical:

Douglass Graybill Adair III was born on December 10, 1942, in Princeton, New Jersey. His father, Douglass Graybill Adair Jr., was a professor of American history specializing in the Revolutionary War and early Jeffersonian period. His mother, Virginia Hamilton Adair, was a noted poet and Professor of English at Cal Poly Pomona. The Adairs moved to California in the 1950s, where Douglass graduated from Claremont High School in 1960. He went on to study history at Pomona College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1964.

Adair was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to continue his studies in history at UC Berkeley. He spent a year studying Latin American history while maintaining his landlady's garden in exchange for free rent. Adair enjoyed gardening so much that he considered dropping out of school to start a landscaping business. During this time, he also developed an interest in farm labor issues, specifically the recently ended Bracero Program. He joined the Student Committee for Agricultural Labor and participated in a pilot project sending students to work in the fields of central California. In the summer of 1965, Adair spent time picking peaches, plums, and nectarines for the Red Banks Fruit Company in Visalia and lived at the Linell Farm Labor camp in nearby Farmersville.

At the camp, Adair first met Gil Padilla of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), who had come to organize a rent strike. Adair credits Padilla with "organizing him" and introducing him to the farm workers' movement. Shortly after, Adair assisted workers at the camp by translating for them and the police during a "wildcat" strike at Exiter Dehydrator. During this strike, Adair met Cesar Chavez, then leader of the NFWA, and Larry Itliong, leader of the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). The NFWA and AWOC would merge in August 1966 to form the United Farm Workers (UFW).

At the end of the summer, Adair was still considering returning to Berkeley when Bill Esher invited him to Delano to assist with the English-language version of the UFW's newspaper El Malcriado. Launched by Chavez in 1964, El Malcriado aimed to reach young Chicanos who didn't read Spanish, as well as African Americans and Filipinos. Adair arrived in Delano just after the Grape Strike began in September 1965, a strike that would continue for over five years and bring national attention to the farm workers' cause.

The UFW quickly enlisted Adair to produce leaflets and copies of El Malcriado to promote the strike. By 1966, he had become the editor of the newspaper. In the following year, Adair traveled to Texas to assist with a melon strike, and upon his return, he transferred editorial duties to David Fishlow and became the publisher. In 1970, he was sent to Philadelphia to help with the grape boycott and later worked in St. Louis for eight months organizing a lettuce boycott.

Wanting to return to the fields, Adair returned to Delano in December 1971 and began working at Tenneco-Ducor ranch, pruning grapes with his friend Rudy Reyes. He continued working there until 1973, when the ranch's contract with the UFW expired and was replaced by a contract with the Teamsters. That same year, Adair was falsely convicted of damaging a car while picketing at a neighboring ranch. He was jailed for 37 days and placed on probation for two years, which prohibited him from having any contact with the union.

Adair moved back to Claremont during his probation to avoid violating the terms and to help his mother care for his elderly grandfather. During this time, he earned a Master's degree in Public Administration from the Claremont Graduate School, intending to improve the UFW's administrative practices.

After his probation ended in 1975, Adair returned to the UFW as a volunteer. He was assigned to the legal department, where he worked from late 1975 through 1977. He managed the Coachella office during the union's election campaigns of 1977 and helped prepare legal manuals for field offices. In 1976, Adair met his future wife, Debra, when she came to the Coachella union clinic as a nurse.

By the end of 1977, Adair returned to the fields and was hired at David Freedman Company in the Coachella Valley, where he tied grape vines. He joined the Ranch Committee in 1980, which represented workers to the union and informed them of their benefits. As secretary of the Ranch Committee, Adair participated in contract negotiations with the David Freedman Company.

The UFW lost the contract with Freedman in 1988, and Adair continued working there for another year until the company sold most of its ranch, resulting in mass layoffs. He then decided to focus on his five-acre date farm in Thermal, California, which he had purchased in 1977. Adair continues to grow dates at Pato's Dream Date Garden and remains a dues-paying member of the UFW.

Acquisition information:
Douglass Adair donated materials to Cal Poly Pomona in installments between 2010 and 2011, with an additional donation made to the collection in 2017.
Processing information:

The collection was initially processed by Special Collections staff in 2012. In 2017, Special Collections student workers Rodney Cox and James Song incorporated new accruals. That same year, Alexis Adkins updated the finding aid to reflect these changes and improve findability and access. The collection number was changed from SC2012.03 to 0011, and the title was updated from Douglass Adair's United Farm Workers Collection to Douglass Adair United Farm Workers Collection. In March 2025, Andrew Kopp added digital objects to Series 1.

Arrangement:

The collection is organized into the following series: Series 1. Correspondence; Series 2. Tenneco-Ducor and David Freedman Company; Series 3. United Farm Workers; Series 4. Douglass Adair; Series 5. Clippings and Publications; and Series 6. Realia, Ephemera, and Photographs.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Advance notice required for access. Digitized materials are available and can be accessed via the respective links in the item-level description.

Terms of access:

Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Preferred citation:

[Box/folder# or item name], Douglass Adair United Farm Workers Collection, Collection no. 0011, Special Collections and Archives, University Library, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Location of this collection:
3801 West Temple Ave.
Pomona, CA 91768, US
Contact:
(909) 869-3775
speccollections@cpp.edu
Website