Reel 26

Scope and Contents The STFU kept in close touch with the Hurff Company and with Leon Schachter about the workers already sent to New Jersey and about possible future shipments. There is a copy of the minutes of the STFU grievance committee at the company (13). Vice-Presidents J.E. Clayton and F.R. Betton journeyed to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to explore their colonization scheme; the papers include a formal joint report on their meeting with the Las Cruces leaders (6) and their respective reports to Mitchell (9,...

Scope and Contents Reports began to arrive about the middle of the month that several of the workers sent to the Hurff Company were dissatisfied and were leaving; the correspondence during the last half of February is devoted largely to solving this problem. There is an exchange between Mitchell and the National Association of Legal Aid Organizations on conducting a survey to determine the need for legal aid in Eastern Arkansas (8, 21, 24). Also, there is a letter from Mitchell to organizer John Gammill in...

Scope and Contents The STFU began sending workers to the F.H. Leggett Co. of Landisville, New Jersey, as well as to the Hurff Co. Leon Schachter wrote Mitchell at length on other job possibilities for southern workers in New Jersey (17). The union's new program came in for some criticism by Rev. David S. Burgess, a friend of the union in New York, and Mitchell wrote Burgess explaining the rationale for the "organized migration" (18). Lastly, there is an especially interesting letter from Mitchell to A. Philip...

Scope and Contents Most of the correspondence concerns shipments of workers to New Jersey canning plants, especially the E.J. Hurff Co. and the Cranbury Poultry Co. There is a copy of a letter from the Campbell Soup Co. the Leon Schachter on their agreement to employ 600 migratory workers during the summer (24). Another project which appears frequently in the April correspondence is Mitchell's plan to provide summer jobs for 200 female students from various black colleges in the South at the Deerfield Packing...

Scope and Contents Recruiting college students for jobs in New Jersey is the main topic in the papers this month; see especially two memoranda by Mitchell on this subject (13,21). There is a particularly interesting exchange between Mitchell and Leon Schachter on the opposition of Memphis officials of the War Manpower Commission to the STFU's labor recruitment program (1,3,5) and between Mitchell and the Commission on the opening of four prisoner of war camps in Crittenden County, Ark. (13,26). Mitchell also...

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...