Bernard Cushman

This collection consists of transcripts of interviews with forty-eight individuals who participated in the founding and administration of the National Labor Relations Board and its predecessor, the National Labor Board (1933-1947). The interviews were directed and designed by James A. Gross (NYSSILR, professor of labor history, law and collective bargaining) in conjunction with the research and production of his books, THE MAKING OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, 1937-1947 (SUNY, 1974); and THE RESHAPING OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, 1937-1947 (SUNY, 1981).



Topics discussed in these interviews include the following: 1. General issues relating to the NLRB; 2. The National Labor Board (1933-1934); 3. The "old" NLRB (pre-Wagner Act); 4. The NLRB in the Wagner Act era (1935-1947); 5. The NLRB after Taft-Hartley (post-1947); 6. Regional offices; 7. The Division of Economic Research; 8. Review, appeals and enforcement of decisions; 9. Organizations and individuals exerting external influence on the NLRB; 10. CIO-NLRB relations; 11. A.F. of L.-NLRB relations; 12. Congress and the NLRB; and 13. Smith Committee investigation of the NLRB.



Respondents who participated in this project include the following NLRB staff members: David J. Saposs (Economics Division, director); Charles Fahy (general counsel); Edwin S. Smith (Board member); J. Warren Madden (chairman); Nathan Witt (executive secretary); William J. Avrutis (attorney); Meta P. Barghausen (secretary to Board chairmen); Wallace M. Cohen (review attorney); Herbert Fuchs (review attorney supervisor); Howard Lichtenstein (review attorney); Marcel Mallet-Prevost (assistant general counsel); Benedict Wolf (administrative organizer); George Bott (trial examiner and attorney); Fannie M. Boyls (trial examiner, review attorney); Owsley Vose (appeals brief supervisor); and Ogden W. Fields (executive secretary, permanent under-secretary).



Other respondents include Ernest A. Gross (Legal Division, associate general counsel); Philip Levy (legislative assistant to Senator Robert Wagner, and legal staff); George O. Pratt (regional secretary, and chief trial examiner); A. Norman Somers (attorney); Lloyd Garrison (chairman); Milton Handler (member, and general counsel); Will Maslow (trial examiner and regional attorney); Stanley S. Surrey (Legal Division); Gerhard P. Van Arkel (general counsel, member); Ida Klaus (review attorney); Louis G. Silverberg (Division of Information, director); Ruth Weyand (Enforcement Section, staff attorney); Thomas I. Emerson (staff attorney); Estelle Frankfurter (administrative aide); George Bokat (chief counsel); Paul Herzog (chairman); Ben Golden (NY Regional Office, executive secretary); Isador Polier (review attorney); James J. Reynolds (member); and Howard W. Kleeb (field examiner). Other respondents include Howard W. Smith (congressman); Leon H. Keyserlin (legal assistant to Senator Robert Wagner); Ray R. Murdock (aide to Congressman Abe Murdock); Roger Robb (Smith Committee, associate counsel); Frank M. Kleiler (secretary to William Leiserson); Charles A. Halleck (congressman); and Lee Pressman (CIO, general counsel).