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 Welcome
to The Labor Press Project.
This site brings together information about the history and ongoing
influence of newspapers and periodicals published by unions, labor
councils, and radical organizations in the Pacific Northwest.
Labor newspapers have been a critical part
of American labor movements since the early 19th century and an equally critical, if largely
unacknowledged, part of the history of American journalism. Today more than a
hundred periodicals serve the labor movement. Thousands more have done so in the
past.
The Labor Press Project began in
Spring 2001 as a collaborative effort by University of Washington
students in History 450 "Class and Labor in American History."
Since that time many more students have contributed their writing and
research to the project and the site continues to grow as a gateway to both
the past and present of this important set of media.
The Labor Press Project is directed
by Professor James Gregory and sponsored by the
Harry Bridges Center for Labor
Studies at the University of Washington.
The History of Labor
Journalism
The history of labor journalism
in the United States is a huge but relatively unexplored topic. Karla Kelling
Sclater
surveys 180 years of labor journalism and discusses key books and articles about
labor journalism in her essay:
The Pacific Northwest
Labor Press
 The Seattle Union Record is one of the
most famous
examples of labor journalism in the Pacific Northwest. It has a fascinating
double history. A daily newspaper with a circulation that
sometimes reached
80,000, it was the voice of labor from 1900-1928. It became so again in the fall
of 2000 when it was resurrected by members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild during their seven week strike against the Seattle Times and Seattle
Post Intelligencer.
 The Industrial Worker was the principal newspaper of the IWW, the
Industrial Workers of the World. Published initially in Spokane, the
Industrial Worker moved to Seattle in
1916. Here is a detailed report:
The Northwest Labor Press of
Portland is the oldest continuously published labor newspaper in the region.
Since 1900, the Portland Central labor Council and Oregon State Federation of
labor have made sure that the Labor Press remains a strong and active voice for
unionism. We report on the early years of the newspaper when it was
called:
The Philippine-American Chronicle was one of
the many papers created in the massive union organizing campaigns of the
1930s. The paper was the organ of The Cannery and Farm Laborer's
Union, which was launched in 1933 by Filipino workers who made the
annual circuit from the Alaska canneries to the fields of eastern
Washington and California. We report on this paper:
 The Guild Daily was the paper of
the American Newspaper Guild. In the 1930s the guild organized
journalists across the country. But the strike that solidified that union took place at
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1936. Striking journalists not only
brought the Hearst corporation to its knees, they published a daily newspaper of
their own that kept the city informed of local, national, and strike news:
 The Timber Worker and The
International Woodworker were the official publications of the
International Woodworkers of America. The IWA was formed in 1937
when unionized workers in the timber industries broke with the AFL and
joined the CIO. The papers provide invaluable information on the
union and its causes: the struggle to establish legitimacy in early
jurisdictional disputes, the union's campaign to improve safety
conditions in the woods, and internal debates over communism. We
report on both of the union's papers:
 The
Pacific Coast Longshoreman was the newspaper of the Pacific Coast
District of the International Longshoremen's Association.
The ILA’s Pacific Coast
District was formed after a coast-wide dockworkers’ strike in 1934.
Protesting poor wages, dangerous working conditions, and unscrupulous
hiring practices, waterfront workers in West Coast port cities went out
on strike on May 9th. After eighty-five days of violence, arrests,
and attempted strikebreaking, the Pacific Coast’s dockworkers won the
strike and coast wide union recognition. The paper was founded a
year after the strike and published weekly until 1936 when the Pacific
Coast longshoremen left the ILA and formed the ILWU. Our report on
it is below:
 The
Aero Mechanic was published by Local 751 of the International
Association of Machinists.
During World War II The Boeing Company
became the Northwest's
largest employer and Boeing workers joined what was to become one of the
mainstays of the region's labor movement, IAM Local 751, International Association
of Machinists. Local 751 began publishing the paper in 1939. Below
is our report:
 The
Washington Teamster was the publication of Washington State's International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The union has long been a powerhouse in Seattle. From his base in Seattle's Joint Council 28, Dave Beck
organized delivery drivers and long-haul drivers up and down the coast. We have
a report on joint Council 28's newspaper:
 The Washington State Teacher was the official organ of the Washington
State Federation of Teachers (WSFT), which was allied with the American
Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
As a result, the paper had a two-fold objective: to strive for the
betterment of public education and to advance the organized labor
movement. Our report
focuses on the publication from October–November 1945 until January 1951:
 Public sector unions dated back to the early
part of the century but were hard to legitimate until the 1960s when federal
workers were finally accorded bargaining rights similar to what private sector
workers had won in the 1935 Wagner Act. Postal workers in Seattle had maintained
a union since before World War I and a newspaper since 1947. In 1971 they became
part of the American Postal Workers Union and the newspaper changed its name to
the APWU News. Protective service workers (police and fire)
also have a long history of unionism. Seattle Firefighters Local
27 (International Association of Firefighters was formed in 1918.
The Third Rail is its monthly newspaper.
 The
Scanner was the offical publication of
the King County Labor Council. Representing
nearly all of the AFL-CIO union locals in Seattle, the KCLChas published various
newspapers throughout the past century, starting with the
Union
Record. In 1968 KCLC
began publishing:
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The
Scanner (1975-1981) by Victoria Troisi
- Since 1998 the KCLC quarterly publication
Labor's
Voice has been available on-line.
The Bellingham Labor News
was established in 1939 as the paper of the Bellingham Labor Council.
The paper not only sheds light on the Bellingham labor movement, but as
"the official paper of Bellingham," it also provides insight into the
history of this important Northern Puget Sound city.
The Pacific Northwest Radical Press
 The Socialist Party
exerted considerable
influence over Northwest politics and within the broader labor movement during
the first two decades of the 20th century. Gary Siebel sorts
out the
factions and issues in an introductory essay,
The
Squabbling Socialists of Washington State, followed by reports on four Socialist papers published in Seattle:
Five Socialist newspapers were published in Everett:
Two Socialist newspapers were published in Tacoma :
 The Anarchist Movement had an active presense
in the Pacific Northwest, centered in the community of "Home" just
across the narrows from Tacoma. Founded in 1896, the anarchist colony attracted
radicals from all over, including Emma Goldman who visited twice. Residents
published several newspapers. We have reports on two:
 The People's Party briefly
dominated Washington state politics, electing a governor and many other public
officials in 1896. The populist movement was strong both in the cities and in
rural areas and laid the ground work for long-lasting radical tendencies among
farmers as well as workers. Of the many Pacific Northwest newspapers that
carried the Populist message only a few survive. We have a report on the
influential Chehalis, WA, newspaper:
 Radical journalism in the 1930s and
1940s took
new forms. The socialist-linked Seattle Labor College launched a newspaper in
1930 which helped galvanize one of the most effective unemployed movements in
the country. By late 1931 the Unemployed Citizens League had tens of thousands
of members organized in "self help" production and barter clubs. See
the report on:
 The Communist Party initially organized competing
Unemployed Councils in Seattle but later joined the Unemployed Citizen's League,
a move which set off a struggle for leadership in that organization. Here is a report on the CP dominated newspaper:
 The Washington Commonwealth Federation was a coalition of progressive
organizations and unions that nominated candidates for state and local offices
under the banner of the Democratic Party. Communists were initially excluded but
after 1936 played an important role in the WCF. The Federation was a major force
in Washington state politics from 1934 to 1949 and published a series of
influential weekly newspapers during that fifteen year period. Three of them are
profiled here.
Several dozen other historical labor newspapers
from the Pacific Northwest have been collected and preserved by the University
of Washington library and the public libraries of Seattle and other area cities.
Here is a
list
of these holdings.
This site
has been developed through the contributions of many people. Special thanks to
the students in HSTAA 353
(Class and Labor in American History) who wrote the research reports; to
Steve Beda who collected and digitized the newspaper pages with help from Jessica Albano, Glenda Pearson, and Suzi Freelund
at the UW Library; to Brian Grijalva who designed an earlier version of this web site, to Fred Bird for much
useful advice. Please see the full
list
of contributors.
Below are the
other labor history projects directed by Prof. James Gregory and sponsored by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor
Studies:
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