In 2003 the U.C.Berkeley Institute of Industrial Relations Library received LAUC funding to build a database of American labor graphics.This project began to survey archives, libraries, unions, and other institutions and assembled a preliminary collection-level description of U.S. holdings in the areas of labor posters and graphics. The scope of this project did not include photographs or art that was not reproduced in multiples. The objective was to help researchers and activists locate original source material and to eventually build a national item-level on-line catalog of these resources. Unfortunately, state budget cutbacks in 2004 resulted in the layoff of project originator Lincoln Cushing, and the work remained incomplete.

Cornell University Press has recently published Agitate! Educate! Organize! - American Labor Posters by Lincoln Cushing and Tim Drescher on the role of posters in the labor movement. Many of the archives and special collections listed below are featured in this book.

If you have, or know of, repositories (large and small) of these materials, please contact:
Lincoln Cushing
lcushing "at" igc.org

Collections currently identified:
Alliance Graphics, Berkeley, CA
Bread and Roses cultural project, SEIU 1199, New York, NY
California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, U.C. Santa Barbara, CA
Kheel Center collection, Cornell School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Ithaca, NY
Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Los Angeles, CA
George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, MD
Holt Labor Library, S.F., CA
Inkworks Press, Berkeley, CA
Labadie collection, University of Michigan
Labor Archives and Research Center, S.F, CA
Library of Congress (Yanker Collection) Washington D.C.
New York Public Library, NY
Northland Poster Collective, Minneapolis, MN
AOUON Archive, Berkeley, CA
State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Tamiment Library and Wagner Labor Archives, New York, NY
United Auto Workers Research Library, Detroit, MI
United Farm Workers union, CA
U.S. Department of Labor Library, Washington, D.C.
Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

Bibliography of American labor graphics, in progress.

Images, top to bottom then left to right:
• (untitled), linoleum print of painter’s strike in L.A., 1948, by Domingo Ulloa.
• "Union Women Build the Future," for East Bay CLUW, by Lincoln Cushing, 1986
• (untitled), Mexican miner's strike, by Rini Templeton, 1978
• "Una sola union-- Vote UFW," by D. Forbes, 1977
• Program cover for the Paterson Pageant, I.W.W, by Robert Edmond Jones,1913 (held Tamiment Library)
• "An Injury to One is an Injury to All," poster of mural in L.A for CWA 9000, by Mike Alewitz, 1994
• "Organize! Organize! Organize!," Web graphic for UE, circa 2000