Finding Aid to the Mildred Edmondson Oral History MS 3523

Finding aid prepared by California Historical Society staff; revised by Marie Dunlap in 2010.
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
© 2000, revised 2010


Title: Mildred Edmondson oral history
Date (inclusive): 1976
Collection Number: MS 3523
Creator: Edmondson, Mildred DuBose
Physical Description: 2 folders (0.2 Linear feet)
Repository: California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Physical Location: Collection is stored onsite.
Abstract: Contains a transcribed copy of Lucille Kendall's 1976 interviews with Mildred Edmondson documenting her work with the California State Employment Service and the War Manpower Commission in the 1930s and 1940s, with an emphasis on the role of women and trade unions in the war industries during World War II.
Language of Material: Collection material is in English.

Access

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Publication Rights

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Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Mildred Edmondson Oral History, MS 3523, California Historical Society.

Separated Materials

The original sound recording from which the Edmondson oral history was transcribed is stored separately on cassettes 32.1-32.5.

Related Collections

The following oral histories were prepared by Lucille Kendall in her effort to document the lives of women labor activists and radicals for the California Historical Society's "Women in California Collection":
Clemmie Barry Oral History, MS 3251
Dorothy Elizabeth De Losada Oral History, MS 3522
Elaine Black Yoneda Oral History, MS 3524
Helene Powell Oral History, MS 3518
Katherine Rodin Oral History, MS 3517
Louise Lambert Oral History, MS 3520
Marion Brown Sills Oral History, MS 3525
Violet Orr Oral History, MS 3516
The following oral histories were prepared under the auspices of "The Twentieth Century Trade Union Woman: Vehicle for Social Change," a project of the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, The University of Michigan-Wayne State University:
Angela Ward Oral History, MS 3536
Caroline Decker Gladstein Oral History, MS 3025

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
California. State Employment Service.
United States. War Manpower Commission.
Women--Employment--California.
World War, 1939-1945--War work--California.
Oral histories.

Donor

This oral history was transcribed from four interviews with Mildred Edmondson conducted by Lucille Kendall for the California Historical Society in 1976.

Biographical Information

Mildred Edmondson was born in 1914 in Oroville, California. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1930s, and a master's degree in rehabilitative counseling from San Francisco State University in 1957. She began working for the California State Employment Service in 1937. Under the auspices of that agency, Edmondson conducted a survey of women employed in the war industries, compiling a trade union directory for women around 1941. In 1942, she accepted a job as a trade union liaison with the United States War Manpower Commission, working with unions to assign workers to high-priority projects and industries during World War II. She was also a member of the United Federal Workers. After the war, Edmondson worked for the Veterans Counseling Center at the University of California, Berkeley; the Alameda County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO; and the Vocational Rehabilitation Service.

Scope and Contents

This oral history collection contains a transcribed copy of Lucille Kendall's 1976 interviews with Mildred Edmondson; an interview history and index; and miscellaneous papers, mostly consisting of documents from the United States War Manpower Commission collected by Edmondson when she worked for that agency as a trade union liaison in the 1940s.
The Edmondson interviews were conducted under the auspices of the California Historical Society's "Women in California Collection" as part of an oral history project documenting the lives of women labor activists and radicals in California.
The interviews shed light on Edmondson's personal and professional life, including her work with the California State Employment Service and the War Manpower Commission in the 1930s and 1940s. In particular, Edmondson discusses the role of women and trade unions in the war industries during World War II.