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Local 1199 Oral History Project

 Collection
Identifier: 5680 OH

Scope and Contents

Interviews with union leaders, delegates, and members include Ernestine Bowen, Thelma Bowles, Grace Glassberg, Nellie Morris, Mildren Reeves, Mary Riley, Betty Rosoff, Doris Turner, Kay Tillow, Sarah Goldstein, Diane Bianculli, Hilda Joquin, Ida Cameron, and other women and men.



Consists of one hundred and fifty hours (eighty-three transcriptions) of interviews relating to the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees.



These interviews were begun in 1975 as a pilot study funded by the union and initially focused on the development of work-related conflict and union organization in Montefiore Hospital, Bronx, New York. The investigators, Brian Greenberg and Leon Fink, later extended their analysis of Montefiore to cover the major events that occurred in the development of 1199 through 1973. The respondents in this collection of interviews include officers and staff of 1199; rank and file membership; delegates and organizers; individuals involved with the Charleston, South Carolina hospital strike (1969); administrators of various New York City hospitals; and prominent labor, civil rights and health care industry figures.

Dates

  • 1975-2008

Language of Materials

Collection material in English

Conditions Governing Access

Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.

Biographical / Historical

Between 1933 and 1957, 1199 functioned as a drugstore local with its membership growing to 5,000 workers employed in independent and chain drugstores throughout the New York metropolitan area. With its success in organizing workers in Montefiore Hospital in New York City, the union began a massive campaign to organize workers in voluntary and non-profit hospitals in the New York area, a large proportion of whom were black or Hispanic. In 1973, the national union was established with locals in other states, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, South and North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The union combined organizing efforts with civil rights organizations, in an effort to achieve mutual political goals. Throughout the period discussed in these interviews, the union was led by Leon Davis (president, Local 1199 and the National Union) whose administration guided the union's political and social activities. The unedited oral history interviews of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees discuss the evolution of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union drugstore local, representing pharmacists and drug clerks in New York City (known as Local 1199 and District 1199) into an international union of non-professional and professional workers in voluntary and non-profit health institutions, including hospitals, clinics and nursing homes, as well as drugstores.

Extent

57.39 cubic feet

Abstract

The unedited oral history interviews of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees discuss the evolution of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union drugstore local (known as Local 1199 and District 1199), representing pharmacists and drug clerks in New York City, into an international union of professional and non-professional workers in voluntary and non-profit health institutions, including hospitals, clinics and nursing homes, as well as drug stores.

Related Materials

Quantity:

55.2 linear ft.

Forms of Material:

Oral histories (document genres).

General

Contact Information:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives Martin P. Catherwood Library 227 Ives Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheel_center@cornell.edu http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel-center
Compiled by:
Kheel Staff, July 16, 2012
EAD encoding:
Kheel Staff, March 25, 2019
Title
Local 1199 Oral History Project
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Kheel Staff
Date
March 25, 2019
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Revision Statements

  • 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)

Repository Details

Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository

Contact:
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853