About the Collections

Pennsylvania State University’s Special Collections Library holds one of the largest collections documenting organized labor in the United States. As part of the Beneath the Surface and Cast in Steel project, the Council of Library and Information Resources generously sponsored the digitization of several thousand records which together document the efforts of working men and women in the industrial labor movement to secure their basic rights.

While this website aims to highlight and contextualize portions of the digitized collections, researchers interested in learning more are encouraged to use the Penn State University Libraries Digital Collections website to access the full breadth of the digital collections that comprise this project, including the following:

  1. the United Mine Workers of America, President’s Office Correspondence with the Districts,
  2. the United Mine Workers of America graphic, photographic, and artifacts,
  3. the United Steel Workers of America District 33 records,
  4. the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North America records,
  5. the John Chorey papers,
  6. the Howard Truman Curtiss papers,
  7. the George Medrick papers,
  8. the Philip Murray papers,
  9. the Harold Rasmussen scrapbooks, badges, and buttons, and
  10. the George Hoenshel Fleming, Sr. family papers.

These collections document both the individual perspective of key labor unions of the industrial era as well as significant labor leaders and individual workers. Yet, these collections represent only a fraction of the holdings within the Special Collections Library.

For more information on the extensive labor collections available, researchers are encouraged to visit the Coal, Steel, & Industrial Unionism Digital Resources LibGuide or to browse the Special Collections Library’s Finding Aid Database for the full list of primary source materials available for research.