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Switchmen's Union of North America Records

 Collection
Identifier: 5034

Scope and Contents

One-hundred and thirty-one linear feet of documents comprising the greatest bulk of S.U.N.A. records have been deposited with the Labor Management Docu-mentation Center of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations as part of the U.T.U.-Cornell Joint Railway Labor History Project.

Included in this collection are constitutions; by-laws, convention and Board of Director Minutes; officer's records; financial documents; strike, arbitration, wage and vacation files and a host of ancillary documents and photographs as well as oral history transcripts in which S.U.N.A. leaders discuss the merger with the U.T.U. All these items are described in the listing below. The collection, in addition, contains memorabilia including convention badges, union buttons, broadsides, initiation relics and a host of other fascinating artifacts which bring to life the ritual which was so much a part of early union life. These artifacts will be described in a separate listing.

The collection has been divided into several record series, the order of which is outlined in the Table of Contents. At the beginning of each record series,



there is a scope note which explains the content and arrangement of that series and which may offer further information about related data. Series are occasionally further divided into a number of elite-series which are seldom more than topical headings. Finally, there is an alphabetic name and subject index to the entire listing following page 296.

Dates

  • 1834-1971

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

The Switchmen's Union of North America is among the older of the railway brotherhoods. Beginning in 1877 with the formation of a local Switchmen's organization in Chicago, the movement became national when the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association of North America held its first meeting nine years later.

This association was destroyed, as a result of a disastrous lockout by the Chicago Northwestern and the 1888 strike against the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy which had equally unfortunate results. Building on what was left of the S.M.A.A., several lodges met in Kansas City in October of 1854 and formed the Switchmen's Union of North America.

By the time of its merger into the United Transportation Union in 1969, the single Chicago labor organization of 1877 had grown to international status with 275 lodges in the United States and Canada having a combined membership of 12,000.

CHRONOLOGY

1877 Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association of North America organized

1886 Switchmen's Association organized

1889 Switchmen's Association affiliated with the Supreme Council of United Orders of Railway Employees

1894 Switchmen's Association dissolved in July

Switchmen's Union of North America organized on October 13

1906 Switchmen's Union of North America affiliated with the American Federation of Labor

1926 Switchmen's Union of North America becomes charter member of the Railway Labor Executives Association

1935 Switchmen's Union of North America affiliated with the Canadian Labor Congress

1969 Switchmen's Union of North America joined with the B.R.T., B.L.F. and E., and O.R.C.B. to form the United Transportation Union

Extent

94.06 cubic feet

Additional Description

Abstract

Included in this collection are constitutions; by-laws, convention and Board of Director Minutes; officer's records; financial documents; strike, arbitration, wage and vacation files and a host of ancillary documents and photographs as well as oral history transcripts in which S.U.N.A. leaders discuss the merger with the U.T.U.

Related Materials

Related Collections: 5034 MB: Switchmen's Union of North America Memorabilia 5034 P: Switchmen's Union of North America Photographs 5084: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Records 5405 mf: Switchmen's Union of North America Constitutions on Microfilm 5406 mf: Switchmen's Union of North America Arbitration on Microfilm 5447: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Unification Minutes and Convention Proceedings 5556: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Records 5556 AV: Switchmen's Union of North America Audio-Visual Materials 5590: Switchmen's Union of North America Lake Shore Lodge 55 Membership Registers 5613: Switchmen's Union of North America Oakland Lodge 158 Meeting Minutes 5630: W.B. Meyers Papers

Quantity:

94.1 linear ft.

Forms of Material:

Records (documents).

General

Contact Information:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives 227 Ives Hall Tower Road Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheelref@cornell.edu https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/
Compiled by:
Kheel Staff, December 07, 2012
EAD encoding:
Kheel Staff, March 04, 2019

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Switchmen's Union of North America Records
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Kheel Staff
Date
March 04, 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

Repository Details

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

https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel/
Contact:
227 Ives Hall Tower Road
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3183

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