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Title: Irving Richter Collection Genre: Papers Date: 1934-1988 Size: 1 linear foot: 1 storage box ID#: 932 OCLC: ©Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs HEFA.01c.update

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Scope & Contents

Irving Richter was born in New York City on October 3, 1911. Trained as a labor economist under Selig Perlman at the University of Wisconsin, he worked in the Transient and Investigation Divisions of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (later, the WPA) from 1934 until 1938 and served as president of FERA Lodge 139 of the American Federation of Government Employees. In 1943 he left a job as an economist with the U.S. Labor Department and joined the staff of the UAW-CIO Washington office as its legislative representative and director of political action, writing a syndicated column on legislative affairs for union newspapers and lecturing widely to union groups. A member of the anti-Reuther caucus of the UAW, Richter was identified as a Communist by Walter Reuther and his supporters and fired as part of the general purge of leftists in 1947. He formed Organization Services, Inc. in 1948, providing services to labor unions until 1963 when he entered Cambridge University as a doctoral student in economics. He taught briefly at Mount Holyoke College, moving in 1968 to the University of the District of Columbia where he stayed until his retirement in 1984. Irving Richter died on May 13, 1989. His personal recollections and interpretation of the postwar history of the American labor movement, Labor’s Struggles, was published posthumously in 1994.

Subjects

American Federation of Government Employees

CIO--History

Labor Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley), 1947

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Trade-unions—Political activity

Trade-unions and communism—United States

UAW factional disputes

UAW Legislative Department

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Correspondents

Eugene Cotton

Elizabeth Eudey

Lincoln Fairley

David Montgomery

Richard Sasuly

H. A. (Herbert Arthur) Turner

Arthur H. Vandenberg

Edith Van Horn

Related Collections

UAW Secretary-Treasurer George Addes

UAW Veterans’ Department

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Contents

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1. Articles published; “The Decline of Organized Labor: A View from 1945,” 1984
2. Articles published; “The Evolution of Federal Housing Programs and Their Impact on the District of Columbia,” 1976, 1983
3. Articles published; miscellaneous, 1939-84
4. Book reviews published, letters to the editor, 1938-84
5. Books published; Labor’s Struggles, corres. re, 1985-88
6. Books published; Political Purpose in Trade Unions; corres. re, reviews, 1971-76
7. Correspondence; Eudey, Elizabeth, 1977-84
8. Correspondence; miscellaneous, 1964-88
9. Correspondence; miscellaneous, 1964-88
10. Correspondence; miscellaneous, 1964-88
11. Correspondence; Turner, H. A., 1963-74
12. FBI file on Irving Richter
13. FBI file on Irving Richter
14. FBI file on Irving Richter
15. FBI; research file, 1977, 1984-85
16. Federal government jobs; corres. and reports, 1934-38
17. HUAC testimony, 1956
18. Interview with Richter about organizing public workers in the 1930s, 1983
19. Newspaper columns, 1945-48
20. Newspaper columns, 1945-48
21. Powell, Adam Clayton. Jr.; “The Powell Affair and Organized Labor” (unpublished paper by Richter), c. 1977
22. Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.; research file
23. Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.; research file
24. Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.; research file
25. Speaking engagements, 1974-84
26. UAW-CIO Legislative Department; corres., reports, clippings, minutes, 1943-47
27. Vandenberg, Arthur; corres. and reports, 1943-47
28. Washington Post craft unions’ strike, Oct 1975-Apr 1976

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