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Show Trace History of Labor in America Result of Work of Years Soon to Be Given to World. Documents of the labor movement in America have been gathered at the University of Wisconsin into a librnVy of historical value. The proceedings of labor union meetings, trade agreements agree-ments and other literature, including writings of radical groups, have been accumulated during the last twenty years at a cost of nearly $50,000. Most of the material in this collection, collec-tion, which is the foremost of its kind in the United States, has been published pub-lished in the eleven-volume Documentary Documen-tary History of American Industrial Society and the two-volume History of American Labor, comjiiled by Prof. John R. Commons, University of Wisconsin Wis-consin economist, and others. Among the interesting documents are hundreds of personal papers and manuscripts of Stephen Pearl Andrews, An-drews, called the first American anarchist. anar-chist. Some of the Andrews papers indicate indi-cate that he was the first American to invent a shorthand method of writing. Also Andrews' attempt to construct a universal language is buried in the musty documents, as well as much of his unpublished writings. A special librarian has been employed em-ployed since 1924 to collect and catalogue cata-logue contemporary documents and to secure other missing documents to fill I in the gap of fugitive material which came into existence after 1890. Mrs. Anna Campbell Davis, the librarian, spent, much time in various sections of the country collecting and copying documents. From 1909 to 1918 the American Bureau Bu-reau of Industrial Research, headed by Professor Commons, spent i?37,000 In collecting the documents. For several sev-eral years after 191S little work was done, but work was resumed nearly : two years ago, and more than $5,000 ! was expended, a large part of which ! came from university appropriations. ! Graduate students in economics are ! studying the material. |
