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A note on the archives ofthe western federationof miners & internationalunion of mine, mill &smelter workersEarl Bruce White a ba Candidate for the Ph.D. degree in History ,Univ. of Colorado , Boulderb Assistant Professor of History and PoliticalScience , Sterling CollegePublished online: 03 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Earl Bruce White (1976) A note on the archives of thewestern federation of miners & international union of mine, mill & smelterworkers, Labor History, 17:4, 613-617, DOI: 10.1080/00236567608584412

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00236567608584412

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A Note On The Archives of The Western Federation ofMiners & International Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter

Workers

By EARL BRUCE WHITE

In recent years Labor History has carried articles on librariesthat are sources for the study of American radicalism.1 However,the Archives of the Western Federation of Miners and Internation-al Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (WFM-IUMM&SW) have not been mentioned.

When negotiations were in progress between the IUMM&SWand United Steel Workers during the fall of 1966 and affiliationseemed imminent, the IUMM&SW began corresponding with theUniversity of Colorado.2 The union's records were formally givento the University of Colorado's Boulder campus library May 10,1967, and the Archives of the WFM-IUMM&SW became thelargest collection of the Norlin Library's Western Historical Col-lection.

Dr. John Brennan is curator of the entire Western HistoricalCollections and is assisted by three full-time archivists and threepart-time graduate student historians. They have managed to or-ganize and classify the WFM-IUMM&SW archive which consistsof approximately 1,000 linear feet of minutes, ledgers, maga-zines, and court proceedings as well as the Research DepartmentLibrary of the WFM-IUMM&SW which contained approximately360 linear feet of books, pamphlets, and periodicals. The totalcollection contains well over 500 boxes of material to which thereis a seven part guide as of 1975. Part I of the guide was com-pleted in 1969 and deals with all bound materials: Miners

1 Bernard K. Johnpoll, "Manuscript Sources in American Radicalism," Labor History, XIV(Winter, 1973 No. 1), 92-97.

2 Information File, Archives of the Western Federation of Miners and the International Union ofMine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Norlin Library, University of Colorado, Boulder.

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614 LABOR HISTORY

Magazine (1900-1921), CIO News (1938-1947), AFL-CIO News(1955-1960 and 1964-1967), Mine-Mill Union (1942-1967),Mine-Mill Herald (1955-1966), WFM Convention Proceedings(1901-1916), IUMM&SW Convention proceedings (1918-1967),Executive Board Minutes (1902-1958), and Boxes 1-217. Part IIcovers Boxes 218-472 and the 103 Boxes of the Research De-partment Library. Part III was completed in 1973 and is a guide to73 boxes that deal with the period from 1945 to 1966 and bundlesof the Mine-Mill Union from 1948 to 1967. In 1974 aPlace-Name Index to the IUMM&SW Collection was madeavailable. In addition to these guides, there are three others:Guide to Canadian WFM-IMU, Guide to material in other U.S.depositories, and Guide to Nathan Witt Papers.

Of particular interest to the research scholar are the 51 rolls ofmicrofilm which have been classified and which may be orderedfrom Norlin Library at $10.00 per roll.

Roll 1 contains the history of the WFM, table of contents, andMinutes of Executive Board from June, 1920 to December, 1935;Roll 2 has Receipts and Expenditures 1893 to 1897; QuarterlyReceipts and Expenditures 1896 to 1902; Expenditures Sept.,1896 to May, 1898; Expenditures April, 1903 to May, 1907; andReceipts and Expenditures April, 1907 to January, 1908. Roll 3continues Receipts for Union Stamps, etc., 1908; WFM Expen-ditures April, 1907 to March 1908; Receipts April, 1908 toAugust, 1910; WFM Disbursements April, 1908 to July, 1912;and Receipts July, 1910 to July, 1916.

Roll 4 ends Disbursements July, 1910 to July, 1916; Receiptsand Expenditures 1916 to 1922; Ledger as Mining Department ofAF of L, Receipts and Expenditures 1912-1916 and continueswith correspondence and records. Letter from Herbert H. Wil-liams to Thomas Kennedy re: Tom Boy Mine, Smuggler, Colora-do, 1900; Complaint: Norman Young v. J. C. Rutan, Sheriff, SanMiguel County, Colorado, December, 1903; Letter from JamesKirwan to Richardson and Hawkins re: Jake McLaughlin, Febru-ary 27, 1906; Minutes of General Executive Board IndustrialWorkers of the World October 4, 1906; Pinkerton Letters re:Idaho Republican Campaign and murder of Ex-Governor Steun-enburg 1906-1907; Letter from George W. Riddell to JamesKirwan re: Accusation of being in Pinkerton's employ April 28,

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A NOTE ON THE ARCHIVES OF THE WFM AND THE IUMM&SW 615

1907; Moyer correspondence re: Miners' Magazine publicationschedule 1914; WFM and IUMM&SW Trade Marks and Patents1903-1923; WFM stocks and bonds 1911-1915; Bond of Secre-tary-Treasurer 1912 and 1913; United Mine Workers correspon-dence re: loan for Michigan copper strike September, 1913; cor-respondence of attorneys LeGendre and Kerr re: legal servicesrendered in Michigan copper strike of 1913, 1914 to 1926; andcharter revocations of Butte Locals #1 and #74 1912 to 1915.

Rolls numbered 5 through 18 are defense records that should beof interest to labor historians as they contain the famous Moyer,Hay wood, Pettibone Trial in Idaho better known as the Steunen-burg Murder Case, as well as the transcript of Goldfield Consoli-dated Mines Co. v. Goldfield Miners' Union No. 220, TheWestern Federation of Miners, et al (January, 1908). The courtrecord consists of 323 pages of testimony on the hearing of theapplication for a temporary writ of injunction. Various witnessestestified, but much of the testimony was by Charles H. MacKin-non, president of Goldfield WFM Union 220 and Haywood'sbrother-in-law. This legal document is essential for any laborhistorian who wants to understand the IWW-WFM amalgamationand rupture.

Rolls 19 through 29 refer to the Miners' Magazine. Roll 19 isthe Miners' Magazine Receipt Book April, 1907 to March 1908;Subscriptions and Receipts 1908 to 1910 and 1914 to 1921; andthe magazine for 1900. Roll 20 is the magazine for 1901; Roll 21magazine issues from August 27, 1903-August 4, 1904; Roll 22August 4, 1904-August 10, 1905; Roll 23 August 10, 1905-Octo-ber 4, 1906; Roll 24 October 4, 1906-January 2, 1908; Roll 25January 2, 1908-February 18, 1909; Roll 26 February 18, 1909-April 14, 1910; Roll 27 April 14, 1910-December, 1911; Roll 28the year 1913; and Roll 29 the years 1914-1921.

Rolls 30 through 39 deal with official convention proceedings.Roll 30, 1901-1903; Roll 31, 1904-1906; Roll 32, 1907; Roll 33,1908-1909; Roll 34, 1910-1911; Roll 35, 1912-1914: p. 234; Roll36, 1914 from p. 234 and 1914-1916 Reports of Secretary-Trea-surer; Roll 37, remainder Secretary-Treasurer Report and WFMConstitutions 1893-1912; Roll 38 concerns WFM membership1909-1914; and Roll 39 membership 1916 and 1917. The re-mainder of the 51 rolls deal with local unions as well as some

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616 LABOR HISTORY

material on Albert and British Columbian, Canadian, locals con-tained in Roll 49.

The WFM-IUMM&SW collection is a valuable source espe-cially in making possible the study of the aspirations of theorganizations outside the United States. The archive makes itpossible to explore the efforts on the part of both the WFM andIUMM&SW in that field such as the WFM strike at Rossland,British Columbia, in 1901. The Miners' Magazine for December6, 1906, carried an article on "the Cananea Massacre" whichwas a copper strike in Mexico. The WFM denied being active inCananea but recently one scholar has commented:

Labor unions were prohibited in Mexico under the dictatorship ofPorfirio Diaz, but the period just before his fall from power in 1910 sawvarious attempts to found them. The IWW, and especially its ideas,played an important role in these conflicts. The first, and most important,strike broke out early in 1906 in Cananea,...

The strike was led by a fusion of IWWs and members of the localLiberal Club, followers of Ricardo Flores Magon and Enrique FloresMagon, and IWW organizers who came down from Arizona and Cali-fornia to help keep it going....3

It should be recalled that the WFM was the mining department ofthe IWW at the time of the Cananea Massacre in 1906.

Other archival evidence of the international goals of the WFM-IUMM&SW is in boxes 6, 54, 120, 122, and 123 which containmaterial on the attempts of the IUMM&SW to reach agreementswith Mexican, Chilean, and Peruvian miners after World WarTwo. An actual agreement was made with Sindicato Industrial deTrabajadores Mineros, Metalugicos y Similares de la RepublicaMexicana (Mexican Miners' Union) in 1949. The pact called forthe formation of a Latin American metal miners' union meeting tobe called by the Mexican Miners' Union and held in MexicoCity. However, there was internal dissension within the Mexicanunion during 1950, the cause of which is not entirely clear. Twogroups claimed to represent the Mexican union and theIUMM&SW lost interest in the 1949 Agreement because of theMexican strife and a new pact was never initiated by either union.

3 Harvey A. Levenstein, Labor Organizations In The United States and Mexico: A History ofTheir Relations (Westport, Connecticut: 1971), 8. See also Rodney D. Anderson, "MexicanWorkers and the Politics of Revolution, 1906-1911," Hispanic American Historical Review,LIV (February, 1974), 94-113.

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A NOTE ON THE ARCHIVES OF THE WFM AND THE IUMM&SW 617

The IUMM&SW then turned to African and Chilean copperminers in the mid-1950s. During the same decade, 1945 to 1955,they also corresponded with the leftist Confederacion de Trabaja-dores de America Latina (Labor Confederation of Latin Amer-ica). The correspondence in the five boxes appears to indicate theIUMM&SW was well aware of the importance of coordinatingunion efforts internationally within a given industry. If copperminers in Mexico, Chile, and Africa were all represented by oneunion then the mining syndicates could not play off one group orcountry against another in contract or strike negotiations. TheIUMM&SW appears to have totally failed in this endeavor, butthe archives evidence its efforts.

The archive of the WFM-IUMM&SW should not be ignoredby the labor historian. It holds the potential key to understandingmany cloudy areas in the field of radical labor such as theSteunenburg murder case, the IWW-WFM merger and rift, therole of the WFM and Mexican labor prior to the 1910 Revolution,and post-World War Two attempts to internationalize the metalmining industry.

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