Flyers for UPW campaigns for better wages and working conditions, circa 1948-1950

The collection documents the activities of the United Public Workers union.

Of particular note in this collection are the anti-discrimination activities that the union engaged in. Specifically, the union was focused on ending Jim Crow segregation in federal employments in Washignton DC. The campaign to de-segregate the engravers of the Deptment of the Treasury is a major focus of the collection. Also included are the attempts to de-segregate worknin and living conditions for federal workers in the Panama Canal Zone after President Truman's Executive Order 9980, issued on July 26, 1948, mandating fair employment practices in the federal workforce.

Also present are clippings and other materials docuementing the union's response to the rise of anti-communist feelings in the United States and the associated legislation that targeted labor organizations during the rise of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s.