ARCHIVE: Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality: Periodical Archive.
Archive Of A Bay-Area Based Feminist Labor Group Of The 1970s
[Labor] Union Women’s Alliance to Gain Equality. [Periodical archive, ca. 1971-1975].
21 vols., folio; includes eight newsletters, typed mimeograph, mostly stapled; lightly worn; occasional light pencil corrections or marginal annotations; a one-page “Resolution”, also typed mimeograph; and twenty issues of Union W.A.G.E.; oversized; folded horizontally for distribution. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Eight issues of the monthly newsletter, May – December 1971, Vol. 1 No. 1 – No. 8; and twenty issues of the bi-monthly newspaper, Union WAGE, Vol. 2 No. 9 (Jan.-Feb. 1972) through No. 25 (Sept.-Oct. 1974) and No. 27-30.
According to one of the mimeographed materials included in this archive, “The Union Women’s Alliance to Gain Equality was initiated on March 7, 1971, during a women’s conference held at the University of California, Berkeley.” The self-titled “Short History of Union WAGE” goes on as follows:
Responding to a call issued by veteran trade unionists Jean Maddox (Office and Professional Employees) and Anne Draper (Amalgamated Clothing Workers)…trade union women met and decided that they needed to form an organization to combat discrimination on the job, in unions, and in society; and to fight for equal rights, equal pay, and equal opportunities. (From the self-titled “Short History of Union WAGE”).
The “Short History” goes on to enumerate the activist events and pickets in which WAGE women had participated and/or spearheaded, including joint actions with the United Farm Workers and meetings with local municipal representatives. It seems that the life of the organization was a short but active one—it ended in 1982—with many protests being organized under its auspices.
The mimeographed newsletters seem to be internal documents detailing meetings, etc. The Union’s newspaper, Union WAGE, was its public voice, and its means of stirring up support within the leftist Bay Area. The paper’s slogan was: “For equal rights, equal pay, and equal opportunities.” As a publicity vehicle the paper regularly announces the Union’s progress and states its aims and goals.
This small but succinct archive really succeeds in capturing the flavor of early 1970s radical feminist endeavors. The WAGE papers are housed at the San Francisco State University, in their Labor archive and Research Center. WAGE material, especially internal documents, in this quantity and condition, seldom appear in trade.
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