Skip to main content Skip to main navigation

Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island Photographs

Call Number

PHOTOS.013

Dates

1938-1981, (Bulk 1957-1970), inclusive
; 1957-1970, bulk

Creator

Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island (Role: Donor)
Avrutin, Harry (Role: Donor)

Extent

3.25 Linear Feet (ca. 3,800 items; 148 folders), 8x10; b&w.

Language of Materials

English .

Abstract

The Central Union Label Council of New York City (later the Union Label and Services Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island) was founded to promote union-labeled goods and union-made products, through lobbying, service and publicity. Chartered by the Union Label Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor in 1911, in its early years the Council established and ran a department store stocked with union-made products. By the 1950s, promotion took the form of mounting annual labor-management trade shows, "Miss Union Maid" beauty contests, sponsoring a weekly labor press radio program, and other public relations efforts. The collection consists of ca. 3,800 images that span the late 1930s through the early 1980s, with the bulk from 1957-1970. The majority are 8x10 black and white copy prints shot by a variety of commercial photographers. More than half document annual conventions of the New York State Union Label Trades and the conventions' associated activities. Prints of special historic interest include images of the 1938 Union Label Week parade in New York City; a mass rally at Madison Square Garden opposing the Taft-Hartley Act, and comely young women used to advertise the Council's agenda.

Historical/Biographical Note

In 1911, the Union Label Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor chartered the Central Union Label Council of New York City. Like its parent body, which had been established by Samuel Gompers in 1909, the New York City Label Council was dedicated to "a more systematic and thorough agitation and demand for union-made and particularly union label products, and for the patronage of union organizations issuing them." In 1916, the Council sold stock to establish a department store of union label products, which it then ran and stocked. After World War II, the increasing number of retail stores carrying union-made products greatly increased, prompting the Council to close its store in 1947.

The Label Council, and later its state counterpart, focused on lobbying, service and publicity, all in the interest of union-labeled goods produced by members of craft unions. Although separate central bodies existed in Manhattan and Brooklyn in 1911, the Central Union Label Council, headquartered in Brooklyn in its own building at 902-4 Broadway, bridged the boroughs. Charles Sinnigen, a member of the Electrotypers Local 100, served as the Council's Secretary. In 1935, the Union Label Trades and Services Department of the AFL chartered a Union Label Trades and Services Department for the state of New York. The organization moved to Bible House, where Charles Sinnigen directed both the city and the state organization as Secretary-Treasurer. The state organization called conventions annually and published the Union Label News.

After Sinnigen's death in 1949, Harry Avrutin, formerly an organizer for the Office and Professional Employees International Union, was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Union Label and Services Trades Council of Greater New York. Placing greater emphasis on publicity tactics, Avrutin published annual buyers' guides to union-made products, mounted labor-management trade shows during "Union Label Week" (the first week of September), staged a"Miss Union Maid" beauty contest, sponsored a weekly Labor Press radio program, and engaged in other public relations efforts designed to promote union labor and products, and, increasingly, to encourage unionized business to remain in the metropolitan area. In 1959, the New York Council expanded its jurisdiction to Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

Arrangement

Folders are arranged chronologically and topically.

Organized into 7 series:

Missing Title

  1. I, New York State Convention
  2. II, Annual Labor-Management Show
  3. III, Union Label Week
  4. IV, Miss Union Maid
  5. V, Chronological
  6. VI, Miscellaneous Subjects
  7. VII, Work Sites

Scope and Content Note

The bulk of this collection is 8x10 black and white copy prints. The images were shot by a variety of commercial photographers, but Alexander Archer and his studio are particularly well-represented. There is some overlap between the contents of the images in the different topical series.

More than half the images in the collection document the annual conventions of the New York State Union Label Trades and the conventions' associated activities, including an annual trade show of products and services produced in union shops (variously known as the Labor-Management Show, Empire State Labor-Management Show, Labor and Management Exhibit, Union Industry Show, and Union Label Exhibit), Union Label Week, and a Miss Union Maid contest. (Photocopied) clippings from scrapbooks of newsprint material provide additional background material on the conventions and activities sponsored by the Council. The convention shots focus on displays of union-made goods, of portraits of Council leadership, and the Miss Union Maid contestants and winners. Miss Union Maid and other women union members are shown in decorative poses, and modeling furs and stockings (and in one instance, a long rope of frankfurters around the neck). Also shown are performances (some of them colorful) at the trade show--from trick dogs and sheep-shearing (the latter with Governor Nelson Rockefeller in attendance), to live music with chanteuses.

Several prints are of special historic interest. These include images of the 1938 Union Label Week parade in New York City; a mass rally at Madison Square Garden with placards urging the President to "Veto the Taft-Hartley Slave Labor Bill"; the Bookkeepers, Stenographers and Accountant Union of the AFL staging a comical demonstration (in the 1930s) to organize office workers ("You have nothing to lose - organize," proclaim the placards of barrel-clad--and wearing nothing else--picketers); and a Cold War-era comparison of controlled and free enterprise, based on how many hours American workers versus workers in the Soviet Union work to pay for a suit and other commodities ("How Much Ivan Pays/How Much We Pay"). Other highlights include: images of "Little Miss Union Maid," the little girl who was also the Muscular Dystrophy Association "poster child" that year, being welcomed to the 1969 convention; a "Miss Union Label" (ca.1950s) wearing a scanty costume and remarkable headgear and posed perching on the bar of a union establishment (a sign confirms it); and a small series of workplace images ranging from the 1940s to the 1970s of butchers (Butcher's Union Local 174) and glaziers at work, and a bottling plant. Persons specifically pictured include: Harry Avrutin, Isidore Becker, Reverend Phillip A. Carey, Edward Cleary, Bertha J. Diggs, Nicholas Ferrante, Patrick Gorman, Vance Hartke, Reverend Joseph Lamanno, Frank Mercurio, Edward A. Nyegaard, Austin H. Perlow, John Scheier, Charles E. Sinnegan, Sam Talarico, Joseph Tuvim, Leo F. Zeller.

Subjects

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright (and related rights to publicity and privacy) to materials in this collection, created by Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island Photographs; PHOTOS 013; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Harry Avrutin on behalf of the Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island in 1986. The accession number associated with this collection is 1986.031.

Related Material at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Union Label and Service Trades Council of Greater New York and Long Island Records (Wagner 54); (Photographs 024) (lantern slides with union label emblems).

Collection processed by

Mary Allison Farley, 1988; Erika Gottfried, 2003.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:32:16 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from NP13-Union Label Trades and Service-Final Draft.doc

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012