THE LABOR ARCHIVES AND RESEARCH CENTER AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY.

The Labor Archives and Research Center was established in 1985 as part of the library system of San Francisco State University. Previously, despite San Francisco's reputation as a labor town, no archival repository in Northern California had actively collected the records relating to working people and their organizations even though there was a substantial body of published scholarship on the labor history of the San Francisco Bay Area. The founding of the Center stems from the activities of three interested parties, each with a vital stake in its establishment and each essential to the effort. First, there was a dedicated group of labor leaders whose garages and closets held files, photographs, banners, and other historical material documenting their lives and local labor's past. Second, there was at San Francisco State University, a president, Paul F. Romberg, who with his close advisors recognized the importance of labor history. The third component involved the financial backing for the proposed center. A compromise has also been worked out in which the six counties surrounding San Francisco are specified in the collecting policy, and nothing from Northern California is explicitly excluded.