TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Scope and Contents

Arrangement

Restrictions

Administrative Information

Significant Subject Topics

Related Material

Selected Bibliography on John Brophy

Detailed Description of the Collection

Series 1: United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Series, 1915-1935

Series 2: CIO/AFL-CIO Series, 1935-1963

Series 3: Personal Series, 1917-1963

Series 4: Publications Series, 1890s-1961

Series 5: Photos Series, 1927-1958

John Brophy

An inventory of the John Brophy Papers at The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives

Mailing Address: The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064

Telephone: 202-319-5065

Email: archives@mail.lib.cua.edu

URL: http://libraries.cua.edu/achrcua/index.html

Biographical Note

Throughout his life John Brophy (1883-1963) supported organized labor as a miner, union activist, and union official. As a youngster he emigrated from England to the United States in 1892 with his parents. Born and reared by a union supporting coal miner, Brophy entered the mines with his father as a teenager in 1894 and joined the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in 1899. An activist in the union, he was elected president of District #2, representing Central Pennsylvania, in 1916. As a member of the Nationalization Research Committee in the early 1920s he vigorously supported the nationalization of the mining industry. Brophy maintained his position as President of UMWA District #2 until 1926 when he challenged John L. Lewis for the Presidency of the UMWA. After opposing and losing to Lewis in 1926, he was expelled from the union on charges of dual unionism.

Between 1927 and 1933 Brophy did not serve in the labor movement in any official capacity, but continued to be active in supporting organized labor. He visited the Soviet Union with a trade union delegation in 1927, taught for a labor school in Pittsburgh, researched the history of mining in the United States, and continued to support the UMWA and the nationalization of mines. He also worked for the Columbia Conserve Cooperative, a cooperative in Indiana run by the father of labor activist Powers Hapgood. A self-educated man, Brophy spent some of this time studying economics and philosophy. He also encountered the papal encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum, 1891) and Pope Pius XI (Quadregisimo Anno, 1931). These papal pronouncements on the social well being of people helped Brophy mesh the two most important components in his personal philosophy and life: his deep faith in Catholicism and his unflinching support of workers and organized labor.

In 1933 Brophy returned to organized labor in an official capacity when UMWA President John Lewis brought him back into the UMWA bureaucracy. Brophy then quickly became an important figure in the national office of the Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO) after Lewis, Sidney Hillman, and other AFL leaders formed the industrial union federation in 1935. He worked as the CIO's first National Director from 1935-1938 and as the Director of Industrial Union Councils and Director of Industrial Unions. Regardless of official position in the national CIO office, Brophy tirelessly traveled the country assisting in the creation and functioning of state and local industrial union councils, supporting important strikes, and speaking at national union and state and local industrial union council conventions as a representative of the national CIO. Brophy was a mainstay in the CIO national office during its entire 20 year existence as an independent labor federation. He also took numerous foreign trips as a CIO representative to international labor organizations like the World Federation of Trade Unions and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and served on a number of government agencies as labor representative, like the National War Labor Board and the Wage Stabilization Board.

After the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955 Brophy continued to work in the national AFL-CIO office as a trouble shooter and with the Community Services Department. He also served on the Advisory Committee on Civil Defense Administration for the United States Department of Labor. Brophy finished a draft of an autobiographical manuscript that was later edited and rewritten with the help of John Hall and published as John Brophy: Miner's Life, (1964), a year after Brophy died in 1963.

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Scope and Contents

The John Brophy Papers includes personal and official records that span his entire life in the labor movement. However, the materials related to his years in the United Mine Workers--Series #1-- are sparse. They include important documentation of his work on the Nationalization Research Committee in the early 1920s and his challenge to the Lewis Presidency in 1926. This small series includes correspondence, speeches, clippings, official memos, reports, and three scrapbooks. The official UMWA District #2 Records at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) Archives are a more much extensive and complete source for Brophy's work as UMWA District #2 President between the 1916-1926 period.

The second series--Congress of Industrial Organizations/American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations Series--represents the largest portion of the collection. The series includes correspondence, speeches, a scrapbook, CIO minutes and reports, and clippings that span his entire career in the CIO and AFL-CIO national offices. The series includes materials on the formation of the CIO and its creation of a national structure. Brophy's role in the establishment of CIO state and local industrial union councils and their maintenance can be seen, particularly the CIO's involvement in the factional struggle in the Los Angeles IUC. He served as a trouble shooter in the early years and assisted in number of strikes, like the UAW's historic Flint Sit-Down strike in 1936-1937. Brophy's role as CIO representative on government agencies, like the Wage Stabilization Board, and in international labor organizations, like the World Federation of Trade Unions and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, is also documented. The series also includes many speeches that Brophy delivered throughout the country to unions and state and local IUCs.

The Personal Series, the third series, is comprised of personal materials and ephemera. It includes John Brophy's family and business correspondence, diaries/appointment books, materials related to his retirement and death, book research notes and drafts, and oral histories. Brophy's diaries/appointment books were kept for years while in the labor movement primarily to keep track of expenses and appointments, but they occasionally include personal observations as well. Brophy's personal research interests are well documented with his research notes for a number of research projects, most extensively on mining in the United States. A completed but unpublished manuscript, "The American Coal Miner,"and a partly autobiographical draft--"Twenty Years with the CIO?--used by John Hall in the writing of John Brophy: Miner's Life, are also in this series. There is also two rather lengthy interviews with Brophy, one conducted by John Hall for the book. There is also interviews conducted by John Hall with Adolph Germer and Reverend Ensworth Resiner.

The fourth series, the Publications Series, is comprised of published materials kept by John Brophy. The series is primarily UMWA, AFL and CIO publications, such as union convention proceedings, pamphlets, and union newspapers. But the series also includes some Catholic pamphlets and newspapers and some government publications.

The fifth and final series is composed of photographs that document John Brophy's career in the labor movement. The roughly 60 photos include the first house he lived in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, his trip to the Soviet Union in 1927, the CIO's first Constitutional Convention, and many traditional photos from his numerous foreign trips.

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Arrangement

The Papers of John Brophy consists of six series:

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

None.

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Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

John Brophy arranged to donate his historical records to The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archvies prior to this death. After he died in 1963 his daughter Jacqueline Brophy transferred the records kept at his home and Howard Holman transferred records maintained at the AFL-CIO offices in Washington, DC. The bulk of the John Brophy Papers came from these two deposits which entered the CUA Archives on April 18 and 19, 1963. In July 1966 Jacqueline Brophy and her brother Philip Brophy donated assorted memorabilia, personal mementos, and materials related to John Brophy's death and memorial service. In December 1991 Jacqueline Brophy donated An American Coal Miner, a completed but unpublished manuscript written by her father, John Brophy.

Processing Information

Processing completed in November 2000 by Joseph Turrini. Data entry by Clint Tibbs and Joseph Turrini. EAD markup completed in March 2005 by Washington Research Library Consortium. Additional EAD markup completed in October 2005 by Jordan Patty.

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Related Material

The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives holds the John Mitchell Papers, the Philip Murray Papers, and the Records of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The archives also holds the CIO Executive Board Meetings, microfilm edition (guide available), Volumes 1-2, 1935-1941, CIO Convention Proceedings, 1938-1955, CIO News, 1938-1955, and AFL-CIO News, 1956-1958.

Articles held by the archives and listed in chronological order

Brophy, John. "The Miner's Program." Survey Graphic 1:6 (April 1922), 1026-1029.

_____."A Coal Miner's Life."Heart's International XLII:3 (September 1922), 82-84, 108.

_____."Nationalization: The Miner's Plan." Locomotive Engineer Journal (March 1924), 178- 179.

_____."Defense of Democracy." Christian Social Action 6:5 (May 1941), 154-162.

_____."War Aims of Democracy." Christian Social Action 7:6 (September 1941), 215-219.

_____."Union Plan for Coal Industry." Labor and Nation 3:5 (September-October 1947), 32-35.

_____."The Industry Council Plan." Commonweal XLIX:5 (November 2, 1948), 110-112.

_____."CIO Charts New Roads." Labor and Nation 1:1 (January-February 1949), 18-19.

_____."Are Labor Unions Here To Stay." Grail (May 1955), 15-19.

_____."A Time For Planning." Commonweal LXXII:18 (September 2, 1960), 445-447.

Pamphlets held by the archives and listed in chronological order

Brophy, John. The Miner's Program. February 22, 1921.

Brophy, John, Richard Gilbert and James Mark. The Government of Coal. United Mine Workers, District #2, 1921.

Brophy, John, CJ Golden, and William Mitch. Compulsory Information In Coal. United Mine Workers, Nationalization Research Committee, 1922.

_____. How To Run Coal. United Mine Workers, Nationalization Research Committee, 1922

Brophy, John. Why The Miner's Program? 1922.

_____. A Larger Program for the Miner's Union. November 1926.

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Significant Subject Topics

Organizations:

Persons:

Subjects:

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Selected Bibliography on John Brophy

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Detailed Description of the Collection