Bringing to Light the History of the Laborers Who Built New York City

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/nyregion/08trades.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Bringing to Light the History of the Laborers Who Built New York City

By LILY KOPPEL
Published: September 8, 2006

Some brittle pieces of paper can make Janet Wells Greene’s pulse beat faster.

It happened when Ms. Greene, a labor historian, was directing a survey to locate and preserve records documenting the New York region’s labor history. She would become visibly excited, even flushed, with each discovery, down to a page of a scrapbook pasted with old photographs of smiling bricklayers from a union local in Long Island City.Such relics provided a spy-hole into the lives of the workers who built New York, and were the kinds of historical documents that Ms. Greene, 59, was seeking five years ago during the survey, which became part of the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University.

Despite many fascinating finds, Ms. Greene still had not located any record older than 1881 from the 600 labor organizations that her project surveyed.

Then one day, as the effort was nearing its end, she had a major breakthrough. Cited in the survey was a visit by a researcher in 1984 to the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York.

On a hunch, Ms. Greene went to the society’s headquarters on West 44th Street and asked a librarian where their records might be. “In some room upstairs where nobody ever goes,” was the response, Ms. Greene recalled. “As an archivist and historian, I went ‘Bingo!’ ”


Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

The library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen on West 44th Street in Manhattan.

FULL story at link above.





Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

A plackard outside the entrance of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen's headquarters.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Wow, thanks

My grandfather was a construction forman on many of the big projects in NYC and one of my uncles was a labor leader.

Thanks for the link.

[Taxloss]

2. Fascinating article, thank you. Recommended.

It reminded me of many of the stories of America's unsung labour heroes - the native Americans who built the first skyscrapers (they were favored because they had no fear of heights), and the massive teams of Chinese labourers who built the railroads.