Finding Aid to the Louis Goldblatt Oral History, 1979 MS 3538
Finding aid prepared by California Historical Society staff; revised by
Marie Dunlap in 2010.
California Historical Society
© 2000, revised 2010
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
Title: Louis Goldblatt oral history
Date (inclusive): 1979
Collection Number: MS 3538
Creator:
Goldblatt, Louis
Extent:
Transcript: 1 folder (0.1 Linear feet);
Tapes: 2 audiocassettes
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: Transcript and sound recording of Lucille
Kendall's November 7, 1979 interview with San Francisco labor organizer Louis
Goldblatt documenting his involvement in the labor movement of the 1930s and 1940s
in San Francisco, California, and throughout the Pacific Coast, as well as the
history of the San Francisco hotel strikes of 1937 and 1941-1942.
Language of Material: Collection materials are in English.
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[Identification of item], Louis Goldblatt Oral History, MS 3538, California
Historical Society.
The original sound recording from which the Goldblatt oral history was transcribed is
available on cassettes 53.1 and 53.2.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's public access catalog.
Bars (Drinking establishments)--Employees--Labor
unions--California--San Francisco.
Hotels--Employees--Labor unions--California--San
Francisco.
Labor unions--California.
Restaurants--Employees--Labor unions--California--San
Francisco.
Strikes and lockouts--California--San Francisco.
Audiocassettes.
Oral histories.
This oral history was transcribed from a 1979 interview with Louis Goldblatt
conducted by Lucille Kendall for the California Historical Society.
Louis Goldblatt was a prominent labor organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area and
throughout the Pacific Coast for over five decades. Born in the Bronx and educated
at the University of California, Berkeley, Goldblatt began his labor career in 1936
as a San Francisco warehouse union organizer. A close associate of Harry Bridges, he
helped organize the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) the
following year. From 1938 to 1977, Goldblatt served as secretary-treasurer of the
ILWU. At the same time, he was active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO), serving as secretary-treasurer of the California State Industrial Union
Council from 1938 to 1942. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Goldblatt helped organize
workers in California and Hawaii across racial and industrial lines. Although he did
not actively participate in the San Francisco hotel strikes of 1937 and 1941-1942,
Goldblatt spoke before mass audiences of striking culinary workers in 1941. He died
in 1983.
Lucille Kendall was a member and officer of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees and
Bartenders International Union. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she conducted
interviews of participants in the San Francisco culinary strikes of 1937, 1941-1942,
and 1980 for the California Historical Society.
This oral history collection consists of a transcript and sound recording of Lucille
Kendall's November 7, 1979 interview with San Francisco labor organizer Louis
Goldblatt; an interview history; and a copy of Goldblatt's obituary, published on
January 18, 1983 in the
San Francisco Chronicle.
The Goldblatt interview sheds light on the history of the labor movement in San
Francisco, California, and the Pacific Coast in the 1930s and 1940s. While Kendall
was primarily interested in documenting the San Francisco hotel strikes of 1937 and
1941-1942, her interview with Goldblatt covers a number of other labor-related
themes, including: the organization and activities of the International
Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) on the Pacific Coast; philosophical and tactical differences
between the CIO and the American Federation of Labor (AFL); and the CIO's efforts to
organize Chinese, African American, Filipino, and other non-white workers in San
Francisco.