Our thanks to James Goddard of the TUC Library for letting up cross-post from their collections blog. You can find the TUC Library at History Day on the 27th of November 2015.
On Friday 27th November the TUC Library will have a stall at the Senate House Libraries and Research Open Day. The event is a great opportunity for students and researchers to learn about a broad range of specialist library and archive collections. This year the Open Day has the theme of the “American Trail“, focusing on North American collections.
The TUC Library holds a unique collection of material relating to the development of the union and labour movement in the USA and Canada.
The collection contains material on the general history of the USA and Canada, as well as specific industrial and occupartional matters such as the system of industrial relations in the two countries, economic conditions, specific strikes and disputes, etc.
You can see a couple of previous blog posts we have produced, on the subjects of the USLabor Day and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster that was influential in changing US labour law and health and safety regulations.
The TUC Library also contains a collection of publications from the US national union body, the AFL-CIO, and a sizeable collection from individual American unions, including many periodicals going back to the 1920s.
In addition, the material covers a broad range of other subjects, such as biographical material on American politicians and labour leaders, and events such as the Great Depression, the New Deal, Marshall Aid, etc.
You can see a sample of some of the American material on one of our Pinterest boards:https://www.pinterest.com/tuc_library/american-labour-movement/
For more information on what our US and Canadian collections contain, or to make an appointment to visit the library, get in touch.