Clyde Johnson Papers, 1930s-1990

Summary

Creator:
Johnson, Clyde, 1908-
Abstract:

Clyde Johnson was a union organizer, carpenter, and writer. The collection documents his involvement with various unions, most affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and his research into several industries that have an impact on organized labor, especially housing, construction, timber, and logging. Of note are materials related to organizing campaigns and strikes conducted by Johnson for the Sharecroppers' Union (SCU) in Alabama and Louisiana, 1935-1937; the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) in Colorado and Texas, 1937-1941; the Oil Workers' International Union in Texas, especially in Baytown, 1941-1943; United Electrical Local 610, 1947; University of California at Berkeley, 1967-1968; and Johnson's term as the business agent for United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 550, Oakland, Calif., 1961-1966. There are also personal letters to Johnson and his wife Anne Agron Johnson.

Extent:
4400 items (32.0 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Clyde Johnson was born in 1908 in Proctor, Minn., a railroad town outside Duluth. In 1929, after Johnson had completed two years of junior college, layoffs preceding the Great Depression sent him east in search of work. He was hired by the Western Electric Company of New Jersey as a junior engineer. He also attended night classes at the City College of New York, where he joined the National Student League and was elected an organizer. He took part in four college strikes in 1932 and 1933, at City College, Columbia, New York University, and City College again, after which he was expelled from City College. He went to Rome, Ga., in 1933 in response to a student request to help organize a strike at the Martha Berry School. While there, he also advised striking stove foundry workers. In Atlanta, he organized advocacy councils for the unemployed; in Birmingham, Ala., in 1934, he worked with steel workers, coal miners, and ore miners. He became an organizer for the Sharecroppers' Union (SCU) in central Alabama in 1935, the year of a cotton pickers' strike. During this period, he also married Leah Anne Agron, whom he had met in Atlanta.

In 1937, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) chartered a national union for agricultural and cannery workers. Johnson became an international vice president of this union. As such, he organized and led strikes of beet workers in Colorado and pecan shellers in Texas. He resigned from this post in 1941, when the CIO set up an Oil Workers' Organizing Campaign and hired Johnson as its Southern director. By the end of 1943, the staff had won bargaining rights at seven of the eight refineries targeted in southeast Texas, and Johnson resigned to join the Merchant Marine.

After World War II, Johnson was hired as business agent by Local 610 of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1948, Local 610 played a key role in the defeat of a Republican congressman, a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Johnson and Local 610 also led a campaign in support of Henry Wallace for president.

In 1950, Johnson moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for some time as a house carpenter before moving to Oakland, Calif., in 1955. There he joined Local 550 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, becoming business agent in 1960. In 1966, he retired from this position and spent the next two years researching and writing Organize or Die: Smash Boss Unionism--Build Union Power, Organize Two Million Carpenters and Woodworkers, a book intended as "a criticism of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the failures of the Hutcheson Dynasty." He also wrote Millmen 550: A History of the Militant Years (1961-1966) of Local 550 United Brotherhood of Carpenters, which relates to his activities as business agent of the local during those years.

During 1967-1968, Johnson worked as a consultant to the Institute of Industrial Relations at University of California at Berkeley on projects studying housing, pensions, and the apprenticeship system. He also became involved in trying to help organize university workers with the public employees union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Scope and content:

The Clyde Johnson Papers include research scrapbooks and loose collections of clippings, correspondence, and ephemera; manuscripts; oral history interview tapes and transcripts; photographs; and publications and other printed materials documenting Johnson's involvement with various unions, most affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and his research into several industries that have an impact on organized labor, especially housing, construction, timber, and logging. Included are materials related to organizing campaigns and strikes conducted by Johnson for the Sharecroppers' Union in Alabama and Louisiana, 1935-1937; the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) in Colorado (beet workers) and Texas (pecan shellers), 1937-1941; the Oil Workers' International Union in Texas, especially in Baytown, 1941-1943. United Electrical Local 610, 1947; public employees at the University of California at Berkeley, 1967-1968; and Johnson's term as the business agent for United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 550, Oakland, Calif., 1961-1966. There are also personal letters to Johnson and his wife Anne Agron Johnson.

Note that original file names have been retained. Where no file name existed, the archivist supplied a file name to create subject access. See for example: "Carpenters," "Forestry/Logging/Timber industry," and "Housing/Construction industry."

Acquisition information:

Received from Clyde Johnson of Berkeley, April and June 1993; Robin D.G. Kelley of Ann Arbor, Mich., in January 1993; Dale Rosen of McClellanville, S.C., in May 1993 (Acc. 93064); from Sinobu Uesugi of Japan in November 1993 (Acc. 93139); and Jonathan Gold of Berkeley, Calif., in February 1996 (Acc. 96019).

Processing information:

Processed by: Rebecca Hollingsworth, June 1993; Nancy Kaiser and Mary Oliva, June 2017

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, March 2021

Note that original file names have been retained. Where no file name existed, the archivist supplied a title to create subject access. See for example: "Carpenters," "Forestry/Logging/Timber industry," and "Housing/Construction industry."

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Clyde Johnson papers #4642, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu