This interview with Harry Conlon was conducted while he was executive-vice-president of Chicago local #245 chapter of the G.A.I.U.(Graphic Arts International Union) Mr. Conlon describes his apprenticeship as a photoengraver for the Chicago-Sun-Times.…
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…
Henry J. Dillon began his career in the photoengraving trade in Chicago in 1937 in a non-union trade shop. Having been fired by his shop for economic reasons, he received further employment at another non-union shop until his entrance into the Air…
Jack Wallace entered the lithographic industry after the Second World War as a litho artist, cameraman, and finally superintendent of a plant in Kansas City, Missouri. He describes the lithographic industry as it thrived in Kansas City; he describes…
This interview was conducted with John Connolly shortly after the union he was president of, the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, merged with the Lithographers and Photoengravers International Union to form the Graphic Arts International…
John Gabbard joined the Photoengravers’ Union in 1954 when he was working as a mask-out artist and then as a permit man for Advertisers Engraving in Cincinnati, Ohio. In there was a four week strike at Advertisers Engraving. As a result of his…
Ken Brown, President of the Graphic Arts International Union, is the son of Arthur Brown former president of the Toronto local. This interview was done in three parts. Part I covers Brown's earliest years; his lithographic-oriented family and their…
Leon Wickersham began his career in Lithography working for the DuPont Company in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1948 he moved to Racine, Wisconsin, to work for Western Publishing Company as a stripper in the lithography department. His first experience in…
This interview was conducted in two parts. Part I explores how Martin Grayson was introduced to unionism by his father, a member of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Grayson joined the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local One in 1936 as a…
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…