Reel 11

Scope and Contents The STFU withdrew from UCAPAWA on March 12, and virtually all of the papers for March have to do with the split. A chronology of the correspondence and events leading up to the withdrawal is especially helpful (11). Returns from a membership referendum on withdrawal appear throughout the month. Advice poured in from friends of the union, including Ward Rodgers (3), Howard Kester (3), Gardner Jackson (13,31), Matthew Woll, Third Vice-President of the AF of L (29), and from two AF of L leaders...

Scope and Contents Donald Henderson held a UCAPAWA convention in Memphis on April 2; the papers include a UCAPAWA handbill and an STFU press release on Mitchell's walk-out from the convention (2). Other items related directly to the feud with Henderson include an injunction obtained by the STFU to prevent UCAPAWA from organizing under the STFU's name (5), as well as two long letters from Mitchell to Gardner Jackson and Norman Thomas (3, 10). The Oklahoma STFU was especially weakened by the split; efforts to...

Scope and Contents The work of repairing the union continued during May. Butler prepared an analysis of STFU locals, which unfortunately does not appear in the papers; however, see the covering letters to organizers D.A. Griffin and J.F. Hynds which discuss ways of reviving the locals (8), and Mitchell to Blaine Treadway on the same subject (9). Reports on the rebuilding effort in Oklahoma arrived from W.R. Purcells (13) and Guy Thomas (13, 28). Butler tried to persuade Kester declined, citing his many...

Scope and Contents An exchange of lengthy letters between J.R. Butler and David Clendenin, Secretary-Treasurer of the WDL, covers the main issues which arose during the month (7,9, 14,26). One of those issues was arranging bail for Louis Johnson, a defendant in the "Night-Riding" case which first arose in October, 1938; the papers include a letter from Johnson (17) and a memorandum on the case (n.d. [June, 1939]). Another major issue was a request from the Farm Workers' Allied Union, which had started...

Scope and Contents From the Collection: Consist of correspondence, reports, ledgers, legal documents, leaflets, printed material, photographs, and newspapers published by the union. These document the activities of the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union from its origins through its transformations into the National Farm Labor Union in 1946 and the National Agriculture Workers Union in 1952, and through its merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union in 1960. The records also contain selected materials from the Socialist Party...