LABOR AND SOCIAL HISTORY RECORDS AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA.

The American labor movement has been heavily Catholic for more than a century, both in its rank and file composition and top leadership. From its inception in 1948 the Department of Archives and Manuscripts at the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., has therefore devoted a substantial portion of its holdings to collections in the field of American labor history. Many of these collections were acquired with the help of clerical faculty who had themselves been important figures in early 20th century social reform. The records of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, and the National Council of Catholic Women/National Council of Catholic Men contain much material on Church welfare work, Catholic social programs, and efforts to influence government social and economic policy. The National Catholic War Council undertook extensive social surveys among the Catholic urban population with particular emphasis on the conditions of women and child laborers, extent of immigrant citizenship and health conditions at home and in the armed service camps. The John Brophy papers is the most consistently useful of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) holdings. The Philip Murray Collection covers the period 1943 to 1952 when Murray was simultaneously president of the CIO and United Steelworkers of America.