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Labor Research Association Records

Call Number

TAM.129

Date

1914-2009, inclusive

Creator

Labor Research Association (U.S.)

Extent

17.5 Linear Feet (21 boxes)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English

Abstract

The Labor Research Association was founded in 1927 by Grace Hutchins, Anna Rochester, and Robert Dunn (LRA's director from 1927-1975) along with Solon DeLeon and Alexander Trachtenberg. Hutchins was the principal writer on wage-earning women for the Communist Party of the United States of America; Rochester, a Marxist historian, economist, and Communist Party member, and Hutchins' lifelong companion. The LRA was politically close to the CPUSA and its purpose was to "conduct investigations and studies of social, economic, and political questions in the interest of the labor movement." The principal activities of the LRA have been research, consulting, and the publication of books, pamphlets, articles, and serials on issues of concern to the labor movement. The seventeen volumes of the Labor Fact Book, published between 1931 and 1965, were widely circulated reference books. The collection consists mainly of unpublished manuscripts and reports, research notes and memos, and correspondence, a good portion of which deals with individuals and organiations who opposed the labor movement, including "labor spies." Also included in the collection are personal memorabilia and other materials documenting Dunn's related political activities.

Historical/Biographical Note

The Labor Research Association was founded in 1927 by Grace Hutchins, Anna Rochester, and Robert Dunn, LRA's director from 1927-1975, along with Solon DeLeon and Alexander Trachtenberg. Hutchins (1885-1969) was the principal writer on wage-earning women for the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), and a member of LRA's staff until 1967. Rochester (1880-1966), a Marxist historian, economist, and Communist Party member, was Hutchins' lifelong companion. It is not known whether Dunn (1885-1977) was a member of the Communist Party. The LRA was politically close to the CPUSA, although there were no formal ties. LRA's purpose was to "conduct investigations and studies of social, economic, and political questions in the interest of the labor movement."

The principal activities of the LRA have been research, consulting, and the publication of books, pamphlets, articles, and serials on labor and industrial relations, U.S. political economy and industry, civil liberties and other issues of concern to the labor movement. Many of the LRA's publications seek to educate the labor movement, from a Marxist standpoint, about broader political economic issues. LRA has received broad acceptance and support within the labor movement, and unions of various political outlooks have availed themselves of LRA's services. As a research, rather than advocacy organization, has largely refrained from taking partisan positions on disputes within the labor movement. LRA offers research and consulting services to national and local unions and other labor organizations. This activity was of special significance in the 1920s - 1940s when few labor organizations were equipped to perform these services. LRA also provides research assistance to individuals and students upon request. LRA currently (1991) publishes the bi-monthly Economic Notes (1934- ), providing analyses of long-term economic trends, and the bi-weekly Trade Union Advisor (1988- ), providing economic forecasting for trade union leaders. Located on East 11th Street, New York City since its founding, the LRA moved to 145 West 28 Street in 1991.

Among the books produced by the LRA are Apologists for Monopoly(1955), The History of the Shorter Workday(1942), Monopoly Today(1950), and Trends in American Capitalism(1948). The seventeen volumes of the Labor Fact Book, published between 1931 and 1965, were widely circulated reference books. Approximately 45 books, written by or prepared under LRA auspices, were published by International Publishers, the (unofficial) CPUSA publishing house. The LRA has also published numerous periodicals, including Mining Notes(1931-1939), Textile Notes(1931-1939), and Railroad Notes(1937-1986). LRA articles have appeared in the Daily Worker, Federated Press, New Masses, and numerous union periodicals.

ROBERT DUNN (1885-1977) BIOGRAPHY

Robert Williams Dunn served as the executive director of the Labor Research Association until 1975. Born in 1895 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, Dunn graduated from Yale College in 1918 and in 1920 received a fellowship in labor relations from the New School for Social Research. In 1915, Dunn joined the Socialist Party and served as the president of the Collegiate Anti-Militarism League from 1916-1918. In 1919-1920, he was a general organizer for the American Textile Workers Union and became research director in 1921. In 1922-1923, Dunn was a representative on the American Friends Service Committee-USSR Famine Relief project, along with Anna Louise Strong and Jessica Smith. Dunn was a member of the technical advisory staff of the First U.S. Trade Union Delegation to the Soviet Union in 1927, along with Rexford Tugwell and Jerome Davis. A joint record of the Delegation was published in 1928, Soviet Russia in the Second Decade. This delegation helped to bring about recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the US and the USSR in 1933.

In 1923 Dunn served as acting director for the American Civil Liberties Union,and remained on its executive committee until 1941. Dunn, and other members of the ACLU's left wing, resigned at this time because of the ACLU's anti-Communist stance. From 1927 to about 1942, Dunn gave lectures at the Workers School on topics such as employer's tactics, research methods, and the World War II economy. From 1926-1940, Dunn directed the American Fund for Public Service, which gave grants and loans to organizations or publications working in the field of education and industrial organization. In the early 1930's, Dunn served as the chairman of both the Prisoner's Relief Fund and the Anti-Imperialist League of the United States. In the late 1940's Dunn was the director of the Civil Rights Congress of New York and served as the treasurer of the Bail Fund of the CRC from 1948 until the Fund was dissolved in 1951. Following the temporary seizure of the Daily Worker by the Internal Revenue Service in 1956, he was involved with the Emergency Committee for a Free Press, as well as the Committee for the Vindication of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1965-1966.

Dunn wrote or co-wrote 12 books, including: The Labor Spy(1924), American Foreign Investments(1926), Spying on Workers(1932), and Company Unions Today(1935). He also edited the 17 volumes of the Labor Fact Book, was a part-time writer for the Federated Press, and contributed to numerous newspapers and journals. In 1925, Dunn married Stanislava Piotrovska, a graduate of Columbia Teachers College. In 1930, they had one son, Roger Williams Dunn.

Arrangement

Organized into ten series: I. Administrative ; II. Correspondence ; III. Reports and research notes ; IV. Manuscripts ; V. Publications ; VI. Robert Dunn political activities, writings, memorabilia ; VII. Labor Spies ; VIII: Labor Leaders, Professional Patriots, and Other Topical Files (unprocessed); IX Addendum, 2010; X Addendum, 2012 (unprocessed)

Folders are arranged alphabetically subject/author heading within each series.

Scope and Content Note

The records of the Labor Research Association span the years 1914-1981, with the bulk of the material from 1930 - 1970. The collection consists mainly of unpublished manuscripts and reports, research notes and memos, and correspondence, chiefly that of Robert Dunn. Also included in the collection are personal memorabilia and other materials documenting related political activities of Dunn. The collection provides good documentation of the LRA's research and publications, some sense of LRA's relations with the labor movement, but provides little direct information on LRA's policy process, relations with the CPUSA, or other activities. The collection provides little information on Hutchins and Rochester.

Series I, Administrative (1942-1976), contains scattered minutes and annual reports on LRA trade union services, and a file of brief histories of the LRA. This small series provides little documentation of the policy process of the LRA.

Series II, Correspondence (1918-1981), consists of three sections, arranged alphabetically: General Correspondence; Officers Correspondence--Robert Dunn; and Other Officers Correspondence. The largest section is Dunn's correspondence, and the majority of the General Correspondence is also Dunn's. The correspondence is mainly with intellectuals or with trade union officials with whom the LRA provided and exchanged information and statistics on industry. Some prominent individuals with whom Dunn corresponded were Herbert Aptheker, John N. Beffel, Cedric Belfrage, Samuel Darcy, John Dewey, Jerome Davis, Carl Haessler, Gus Hall, Philip Frankfeld, Cheddi Jagan, James Weldon Johnson, Oakley C. Johnson, Corliss Lamont, Vito Marcantonio, Otto Nathan, Scott Nearing, Andrew Overgard, Carl Reeve, Pete Seeger, Jessica Smith, Anna Louise Strong, and Alexander Trachtenberg. The collection contains extensive correspondence between Dunn and Grace McDonald of the California Farmer-Consumer Legislative Committee, labor scholar Jurgen Kuczynski of East Germany, and Walter and Elizabeth Rogers, whose folder also contains materials published from their "Victory Library." This section also contains correspondence, songs, and poetry of John Bovingdon.

Series III, Reports and Research Notes (1925-1974, bulk 1930s-50s), is arranged alphabetically by topic. This series contains a variety of forms including segments of reports, notes, memos, and outlines. The research in this series seems to have been commissioned by unions or formed the basis for later LRA publications. The LRA provided trade union services for local AFL and CIO unions, national offices of progressive CIO unions, and other worker organizations, such as the Finnish Federation. In 1947, the LRA supplied reports to 1,154 trade unions. The reports cover a broad range of contemporary economic and political issues, including accounting terminology, anti-communism and civil liberites, economic planning, informers, labor history, local and regional issues, monopoly, taxation, unemployment, and war profits. Folders eight and nine contain biographical sketches of prominent reactionaries.

Series IV, Manuscripts (1920-1976), is arranged alphabetically by title (there are sixty manuscripts). Most folders in this series contain a single, usually pamphlet or chapter length manuscript, or segment thereof. About half of these folders name the authors, among them several significant figures in the CPUSA. One quarter of the manuscripts pertain to specific industries, including coal, construction, chain stores, the film industry, farming, oil, shoes, telephone and textiles. Selected titles with an historical focus include "Banking, history in the US", "The Southern differential", by Herbert Aptheker, "Southern lumbering", by Art Shields and Ester Lowell, "Germans in U.S. unions" by Karl Oberman, "Negroes, New Jersey" by Harold Weaver. Folders "Espionage, I-IV" contain an incomplete typescript of The labor spy, 1924, written by Sidney Howard, with the collaboration of Robert Dunn.

Series V, Publications (1929-1974), contains LRA articles which appeared in various periodicals, reviews of the Labor Fact Books, a folder of questionnaires disseminated between 1931-1935 by the LRA and the CPUSA-initiated Pen and Hammer Clubs, and indexes for LRA serials for the 1930s.

Series VI, Dunn-Political Activities, Writings, Memorabilia (1914-1973), consists of published and unpublished articles by Dunn, his lectures at the Workers School 1927-37, and information related to some of the organizations and activities he participated in, such as the Civil Rights Congress of New York. This series contains three folders of information gathered in the 1927 Trade Union Delegation to the Soviet Union. Personal correspondence of Dunn, with letters from Ella Bloor and Charles Taft II, are also included. This series also contains a scrapbook consisting of clippings and memorabilia documenting Dunn's years at Yale as president of the debating team, and his early political activities.

Series VII, Labor Spies (1911-1954; bulk 1920s-early 1930s), contains clippings, essays, flyers, press releases, reports, etc. Included are reports written by labor spies and reports prepared by or for LRA. LRA leader Robert Dunn this material while writing his book The Labor Spy (1924). The processed files are arranged alphabetically, one topic to a folder. A more detailed description of this series follows:

Newspaper articles are approximately 50% of the series. Many of the articles have "D.W." written on them, meaning that they were from The Daily Worker. Correspondence, almost 25% of the series, is approximately equally divided between that by spies and that of the L.R.A. Interviews with labor spies, essays by L.R.A. members, and occasional write-ups by spies themselves are also almost 25% of the series. In addition to writings by Dunn, the collection includes articles by Leo Huberman. Material by and about Louis Budenz is in the "Mac Donald Russell" file, and others. The presumably original transcripts of interviews are usually one-on-one. The interviewer is not given, but is presumably a member of the L.R.A. The people being interviewed are spies or former spies, presumably late in their careers and perhaps newly critical of their profession. Transcripts of interviews with labor spies are included in several files, but the files on the "Sherman Service Inc." (files 44 & 45) contain several. As a primary source and example of what labor spies do, the daily reports by active labor spies makes a stand out of file 42, "Philadelphia Hosiery Plant". Files 24 through 26 are about union organizer Adolph Lessig, who denied being a spy. These files are also of interest because of their volume, the labor court transcript, and the allleged involvement of the International Auxiliary Company in the case. While many files include information on particular spies, "Jacob Nosovitsky" (files 34 & 35) was active in several agencies in this country and perhaps the only spy represented in these records who worked abroad.

Series VIII: Labor Leaders, Professional Patriots, and Other Topical Files (unprocessed), contains five linear feet of research files, mostly from the 1920s-1940s. There is one box on "Labor Leaders" [i.e. conservative labor union leaders opposed by LRA], two boxes on "Professional Patriots," i.e. anti-labor and right-wing organizations, and one box of topical files for subjects beginning with "S" such as Smith Act, and the Spanish Civil War.

Series IX: Addendum (2010) contains minutes (1927-2000, incomplete); unpublished writings including a history of the Workers Health Bureau, and "Words for Workers," a 206 pp. glossary by Communist labor leader Ernest De Maio (1908-1990), as well as a file commemorating his life; correspondence of Grace Hutchins and material relating to her death; business records relating to various LRA periodicals, files on topics and other organizations, and a framed letter from President "Bill" Clinton greeting the LRA's 22nd annual award dinner.

Series X: Addendum (2012) contains programs and planning materials for the 22nd-31st Annual Labor Awards Dinners. There are also year-end financial statements, Board of Directors minutes, documents related to District 65 Pension Plan, et al. v. Labor Research Association, tax returns dating back to the 1940s, and digital media recordings of LRA events.

Subjects

Conditions Governing Access

Materials open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by Labor Research Association was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date; Labor Research Association Records; TAM 129; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.

Location of Materials

Materials stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to research visit.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Materials were donated by the Labor Research Association in 1987,1988, 2010, and 2012. The accession numbers associated with these gifts are 1987.004, 2010.015, and 2012.005.

Separated Material

Photographs were separated during processing and transferred to the Labor Research Association / Robert Dunn Photograph Collection (PHOTOS 033).

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

Cedric Belfrage Papers (TAM 143)

Collection processed by

Tamiment staff (2009). Edited to reflect addenda (2012).

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:51:54 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is in English

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from LRA Guide.wpd

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