Interviews conducted by Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin for their book, Talking Union, a history of the organization and early years of UAW Local 600., the local representing workers at Ford’s Rouge plant.
Topics include his parents' emigration from Finland; lumber camps; copper mines and mining; school in Calumet, Mich.; the 1913 strike; Western Federation of Miners; Socialists in the mines; Finnish newspapers; World War I; farm life in Oskar, Mich.;…
Arthur Osman is the Former president of the District 65 Distributive Workers of America. In this interview Osman recalls the conditions in the dry goods industry in New York in the early 1930’s, the AFL-CIO split in later 30’s, and the organizing of…
Conducted by Jack W. Skeels between 1959 and 1963 as part of a University of Michigan - Wayne State University Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations project to document the early years of the United Automobile Workers union. All interviews…
Topics include his father's leaving Finland, working at the mine in Ishpeming, family life and boarders, beginning his engineering career, and teaching at Suomi College.
Collective biography of Arvid Wiitaniemi, 1871-1961, compiled chiefly by various family members. Topics include his birth in Finland in 1871; coming to the U.S. in 1887; his two marriages; family life; working in the sandstone quarry in Jacobsville;…
Topics include his father clearing land and building a home; starting a farm; working in lumber camps and mines; the 1913 strike; ethnic conflicts; religious life; keeping country roads open in the winter; a home remedy; moving to Pontiac in 1922;…