Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Healey, Shevy Wallace
- Abstract:
- Materials related to CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) organizing activities in the 1930s and 1940s in the Los Angeles area, with a focus on the American Communications Association-CIO attempt to organize the Los Angeles Western Union Workers (1944-1945). There is also one folder of material on the Wesley Robert Wells Case.
- Extent:
- 1 box 1/3 linear foot
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains flyers, manuals, books, and other materials, including a small amount of correspondence. The majority of the materials concern CIO (Congress of Industrial Organization) organizing activities in the Los Angeles area. The most detailed information is the one folder of correspondence, flyers and other documents relating to the CIO's attempt to organize the Western Union Workers in 1944-1945. 3 folders contain flyers from a variety of other unions, companies, and other organizations concerning dances, elections and other events. Also included is a published "Sketchbook" showing designs for CIO floats for a 1947 Labor Day Parade by cartoonist, Ted Sally, who illustrated many of the CIO flyers, and a copy of a CIO Shop Stewards manual. The one non-CIO folder contains a variety of flyers and clippings concerning protests against the death penalty conviction of Wesley Robert Wells, who was charged with assaulting a guard at San Quentin.
Unions and other organizations mentioned include: National Association of Die Casting Workers, Utility Workers Organizing Committee, United Furniture Workers (including Plastic and Wood Aircraft Division), CIO Casting Workers, United Drug Company Organizing Committee, Oil Workers International Union, CIO Warehouse and Furniture Workers Organizing Committee - Machinists Unit, Norris Workers CIO Shop Committee (Western Mechanics Union), International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers (Aluminum Organizing Committee, Phelps-Dodge Organizing Committee, and Basic Magnesium Employees Local) Torrance ALCOA Workers Local, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, United Food Processing Workers, Monolith Cement Workers Union, CIO American and Allied War Relief Committee, CIO Council and Union Steward Groups, CIO Women's Auxiliary Council, Women's Auxiliary American Newspaper Guild, Progressive Voters Association, Union Security Committee, Southern California Labor School, Communist Party (Watts & Willowbrook Clubs, Virgil Rhetta Club, and E. Santa Monica Club), and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Shevy Healey, then Shevy Wallace, served as an International Representative during the American Communications Association-CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) campaign to organize the Western Union Workers in the mid-1940s. This campaign ended in 1945 when the CIO lost the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) election to determine which union would represent the company to the AFof L (American Federation of Labor) sponsored union. She also collected flyers and other materials relating to other CIO organizing activities in the Los Angeles area from the late thirties to the early 1950s. Healey served as a Communist Party spokesman and ran for Los Angeles County Tax Assessor in the mid-1960s. She later earned a Ph.D. and lived in Idylwild, California in 1989.
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
6120 S. Vermont AvenueLos Angeles, CA 90044, US
- Contact:
- (323) 759-6063