{"id":9794,"date":"2024-09-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/?p=9794"},"modified":"2024-09-02T11:20:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T15:20:03","slug":"labor-day-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/labor-day-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day 2024 \u2013 Perspectives from the Catholic Pamphlet Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Rachel Bohlmann, American History Librarian and Curator<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In honor of Labor Day, when the United States celebrates the achievements of workers and their contributions to the nation, Rare Books and Special Collections highlights sources about Labor Day, labor, and labor organizing held in the Catholic Pamphlets Collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 1970s Rev. George G. Higgins, a long-time staff member for the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), now known as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB), published an annual \u201cLabor Day Statement.\u201d Known as the \u201cLabor Priest,\u201d Higgins spent his career supporting workers, their unionization, and calls for economic justice. Higgins worked particularly closely with C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez and the United Farm Workers during the 1960s and 1970s. The priest also assisted workers in other parts of the economy who wanted to organize, including health care service workers in Catholic hospitals. In his \u201cLabor Day Statements\u201d across the decade, Higgins expressed hope in the promise of American democracy and in the Catholic Church\u2019s social justice teaching for workers\u2019 to achieve economic justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George G. Higgins, Labor Day Statement<\/em> from 1973<\/a>, 1976<\/a>, and 1979<\/a>.
(Catholic Pamphlet Collection, Box 41)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Higgins\u2019 Labor Day tracts, the Catholic Pamphlet Collection holds publications by other \u201cLabor Priests,\u201d a small group of American Catholic clergy who, over the twentieth century, advocated for workers. One of these progressives was Higgins\u2019 mentor, Rev. John A. Ryan. He published a series of pro-union pamphlets in the 1930s and supported the social welfare programs created through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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John A. Ryan, Capital and Labor<\/a><\/em> and The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System<\/a><\/em>.
(Catholic Pamphlet Collection, Box 79)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, not all Catholics agreed with Ryan\u2019s position on labor and the New Deal during the Great Depression; RBSC\u2019s Catholic Pamphlet Collection represents these views also. Father Charles Coughlin\u2019s popular radio campaign against FDR and the New Deal is well known. The priest\u2019s virulent anti-union and anti-communist views appear here in a number of pamphlets.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n
Charles E. Coughlin, Appeal to the Laboring Man<\/a><\/em> and,
with David Brann, The Chrysler-C.I.O Industrial Strike<\/a><\/em>
(Catholic Pamphlet Collection, Box 21)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Catholic Pamphlet Collection also holds related, non-Catholic publications as well, like this anti-Congress of Industrial Organizations and anti-communist booklet, Join the C.I.O. and Build a Soviet America<\/em> from 1937. The CIO was an inter-racial union for primarily unskilled workers that Coughlin and other conservatives believed was a communist front.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Joseph P. Kamp, Join the C.I.O. and Help Build a Soviet America: A Factual Narrative<\/a><\/em>.
(Catholic Pamphlet Collection, Box 46)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Labor Day Statements supporting farm workers in the 1970s to New Deal-era workers\u2019 rights and anti-union fears in the 1930s, the Catholic Pamphlet Collection encourages and enables exploration about and around working people in the United States, and many other topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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RBSC is closed Monday, September 2nd, for Labor Day.<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of Labor Day, when the United States celebrates the achievements of workers and their contributions to the nation, Rare Books and Special Collections highlights sources about Labor Day, labor, and labor organizing held in the Catholic Pamphlets Collection. During the 1970s Rev. George G. Higgins, a long-time staff member for the National Catholic … Continue reading Labor Day 2024 \u2013 Perspectives from the Catholic Pamphlet Collection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1936,"featured_media":9818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[77927,75052],"tags":[77948,77931],"class_list":["post-9794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-catholic-studies","category-us-history-culture","tag-otd-holidays","tag-printed-ephemera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9794"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9830,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9794\/revisions\/9830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}