Collection Spotligt: UAW Education Department Records

The Walter P. Reuther Library is excited to announce the opening of an addition to the UAW Education Department Records, one of the most essential collections from the union’s archival holdings. This new portion mostly documents outward facing literature produced by the department from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, shedding light on the UAW’s ambitious agenda for raising awareness on a variety of socioeconomic issues as well as training the next generation of union leaders.
Education has been a key component of the program of the UAW (officially known as the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America) since its founding, when its original constitution designated an education standing national committee. From these initial years, the UAW made education an integral part of its operations, focusing on members, especially new ones, to teach them the importance of union representation and how to more fully participate in the UAW. The department also prioritized its efforts on longtime members, retirees, officers and staff, as well as the general public. With such a broad range of responsibilities, the Education Department utilized a variety of ways to carry out its program. This included courses and curriculum for members, intensive summer school programs, educational films, publishing Ammunition magazine, a renowned annual national education conference, and much more. The Education Department historically has been the place where the breadth and ambition of the UAW’s agenda is on full display, and by the 1960s the department billed itself the most extensive labor education apparatus in the world. The collection also highlights the UAW’s commitment to social unionism, with programming about civil rights, gender and racial equality, combatting reactionary politics, and many more socio-economic and political causes.

This opening is an addition to a already existing UAW Education Department Records. The new materials cover the educational programming and inner workings of the department from its early years to the early 1970s. This spans a wide range of records, including materials on union classes and curriculum, educational films, magazines, informational pamphlets, producing and broadcasting television and radio programs, its national education conference, summer school programs, working with university labor schools, running labor literature book stores and libraries, a co-op division, new member orientations, partnering with community organizations, and much more. The records cover the department during the years it was overseen by the directorship of Victor Reuther, Brendan Sexton, and Carroll Hutton.

Gavin Strassel is the UAW Archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library.