Exhibit on Labor History

[jsmithsen]

in Virginia, of all places, a right-to-work state:

http://www.wtvr.com/news/dp-va--organizedlaborexh0919sep19,0,4196761.story


The Virginia Historical Society is giving people a glimpse into the state's organized labor past and how it has shaped the working world today.

The recently opened exhibit at the Richmond museum features more than 75 items that explore the evolution of organized labor in Virginia from the early 19th century through the 1950s, when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organization merged. The items include photographs, union agreements, boycott notices, charters for unions, membership certificates, plaques, and propaganda posters.

Among other labor topics, the exhibit focuses on unions lobbying for better pay, benefits, working conditions, and social legislation. Museum officials say the exhibit helps show visitors there hasn't always been a 40-hour work week, minimum wage, health benefits, and required lunch breaks.

"A lot of things we take for granted, organized labor played a big role," said Virginia Historical Society President and CEO Paul Levengood. "Virginia has been very much a part of this national labor movement, in spite of some pretty serious hostility at times."

The state's first glimpse of organized labor came in the 1600s when many settlers arrived in Virginia from Europe under contract as indentured servants. The servants were obligated to work for their sponsor for a set period of years to pay off their passage.

Other early contracts included apprenticeship agreements like one from 1827 between Charles Lumsden and clock and watchmaker William Pearman, who would teach "his art, trade, and mystery," over a term of five years.

As the years went by, Virginians became more organized in their trades, joining various local and national labor groups like the Knights of Labor. Richmond even hosted that group's tenth annual convention in 1886.

In the 1890s, several unions of coal workers joined to form the United Mine Workers. The union signed a major contract for mines north of the Ohio River in 1898, but unionization of mines in southern West Virginia and in Virginia wasn't as quick or widespread.

Around the same time, the machinists union led a strike at Richmond Locomotive over "unskilled men" being "placed in certain positions in the machine-shops." They were later joined by the unions for carpenters, blacksmiths, pattern-makers, boilermakers, and others.

The exhibit also features a display of photos by the National Child Labor Committee first seen at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition. The pictures showed children working in the spinning rooms at a textile mill in Grayson County, and young girls rolling cigarettes at a Danville factory. Virginia first passed laws to regulate child labor in the late 1800s and were revised numerous times in the early 1900s.

"We sort of have a little bit of myth-making that goes on in a place like Virginia--that Virginia's always been a pastoral land of grace and gentility," Levengood said. "We don't think a lot about some of these things like life in a textile mill or a coal mine."

Virginia's tobacco history also had a large place in the state's organized labor movement and plays a prominent part of the exhibit. Workers at factories in Richmond held numerous strikes in the late 1930s over hourly wages and the right to unionize.

In one case, workers at the Export Leaf Co. went on strike in 1938 for a minimum hourly wage of 25 cents. A settlement came 18 days later with most of the union demands met, despite threats the plant would close.

Overall, the exhibit is important because it tells a story about organized labor in Virginia that very few people know about, said lead curator William Rasmussen.

"Whatever's been written about it is very little," Rasmussen said. "I don't know where else you're going to learn this story."



Why is there no "National Museum of American Labor History"? This would be a great addition to our national culture, and would make sense in a Rustbelt city. The largest exhibit on Michigan labor history (correct me if I'm wrong) is at the Henry Ford museum itself, and is a relatively small subset of a museum focused on cars. Ohio has several very small museums.

Perhaps this would make sense as part of a more general museum of social history, including all social movements. And/or this could be done at the regional level.

[Omaha Steve]

1. K&R!