William (Bill) Hall left school after the eighth grade and in 1925 became an apprentice to the photoengraving trade in a non-union shop. Having become a journeyman in 1930, Hall became active in efforts to organize Chicago Local 5 of the…
In this interview T. Earl Kinney recalls how he obtained his first job as a delivery boy in the printing division of the Sun Publishing Company in Vancouver, British Columbia. Kinney describes how he became a letter press apprentice, a member of the…
Max Levine grew up in South Philadelphia and started working in the printing trade at age seventeen, this led to an apprenticeship and membership in the Bookbinders Union in 1951. In this interview Levine discusses organizing the Curtis Publishing…
In this interview Edward Donahue describes his childhood in South Dakota and leaving in 1939 to join the Army Air Corps where he studied photography. Donahue recalls his experience in WWII and working in the freight service after the war. Donahue…
Eugene Macellari moved to Boise, Idaho in 1950 and took his apprenticeship as a lithographer there. Macellari went to work in a mixed shop where just the litho department was ALA under Portland Local 36. Macellari describes the strike in 1957, which…
This interview takes place in two parts.In Part I of the interview Theodore Meyers recall s joining the ALA at age nineteen as a feeder, his time in the Navy in the Second World War, and his return to work as a feeder and how he became active in the…
In this interview Gus Petrakis recalls quitting college to go to work for Western Printing during the depression. Petrakis worked his way up to apprentice pressman, became affiliated with the Milwaukee local of the ALA, and became the first recording…
Born in 1918 in Chicago and beginning his career in lithography as a dot etcher, William A. Schroeder became a member of Local 4 of the ALA in 1942. Schroeder describes the local union during the period of the forties and fifties and describes the…
This interview takes place in two parts. In part I Harry Spohnholtz recalls his interest in printing and working at printing shops in Chicago in the 1920’s. Spohnholtz joined the ALA in 1929 and during the hard years of the depression, he changed…
This interview takes place in three parts. Part I discusses Stone’s early years in Wisconsin, attending the University of Wisconsin, and working as a stripper in a Lithography shop. In 1940 Stone became recording secretary of his local union in the…