Mission
The mission of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association is to collect, preserve and celebrate the history, culture and traditions of working people and their unions in the city of New Haven and its surrounding communities.
Background
GNHLHA brings the history of New Haven's working people to the community by
1) preserving and maintaining an archival repository of individuals' papers and local union records, documents and artifacts;
2) working with students, teachers and community volunteers to conduct oral history interviews with current and retired workers;
3) organizing film festivals, events and lectures;
4) creating traveling exhibits and installing them in appropriate venues;
5) partnering with union officers and members to identify, inventory and research their records of long-term historical significance;
6) providing reference and research assistance to students, teachers, workers, genealogical researchers and others;
7) maintaining a web site with information about working class history in the greater New Haven area;
8) holding an annual meeting with panel discussions about topics of interest to the community and
9) organizing labor history bus and walking tours
Our highly successful traveling exhibit, "New Haven's Garment Workers: An Elm City Story" opened in 2007 at the Ethnic Heritage Center and has since shown at 23 different locations including universities, public libraries, the atrium at City Hall and other local and regional venues since then..
At the end of 2013, LHA completed its long awaited second traveling exhibit, "Our Community at Winchester: An Elm City Story." Highly acclaimed, the exhibit has shown at Gateway Community College, Science Park, and the atrium of City Hall and is currently on view at Higher One, on the site of the old Winchester plant. The organization recently received a $1000 grant from Historic New England to help fund research and creation of eight more oral histories to include in the exhibit.
In 2008, GNHLHA facilitated the creation of a mural for the newly renovated Augusta Lewis Troup School on Elm Street by artist Susan Bowen. Many of the photographs used in that mural came from GNHLHA collections. In addition, the organization researched and published a booklet about the life of the school's namesake-- whose legacy had been previously unknown to its students. "Augusta Lewis Troup: Worker, Activist, Advocate" was distributed to the hundreds attending the school opening, and later disseminated to students through the efforts of a teacher at the school. It won Honorable Mention in the 2009 Connecticut League of History Organizations Awards of Merit.
Impact
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
1) Completion of the 33 panel traveling exhibit, "Our Community at Winchester: An Elm City Story," with exhibit displayed at Gateway Community College, Science Park, the atrium at New Haven City Hall, and currently, the lobby of Higher 1. It will continue to travel to new venues for the foreseeable future.
2) Continue to develop proposals for teaching labor history in the Connecticut Public Schools
3) Successful and well-attended Annual Conference/ Meeting in April 2014
4) Found two new venues for Garment Workers traveling exhibit
GOALS:
1) Raise $50,000 for sustainability (Basic Operating Expenses)
2) Expand the Winchester exhibit by conducting eight more oral histories
3) Upgrade and restore the Garment Workers exhibit, which will travel to New Jersey's Botto House Museum in 2015
4) Process and publish finding guides for a backlog of current archival collections
5) Increase collaboration with other organizations
Needs
NEEDS:
1) Raise $50,000 /year for sustainability
2) Recruit 3-5 new Board members
3) Recruit new volunteers
4) At least double organizational and individual membership
5) Raise $20,000 to upgrade current traveling exhibits
Board Chair Statement
The newly elected President, Louis W. Berndtson, Jr., writes: My father was a mainstay at the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Local 936, which represented workers on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Line. Like many people today, I received no labor history education, so all I knew was from what I observed of my father's work. When I began organizing at Yale with the late Vincent Sirabella, I began to realize how much I had to learn, because now I had to teach it as well! A lack of a labor history curriculum in the schools, even to understanding your basic rights as a person in the work force-- this situation cries out for redress.
Our two most basic challenges as an organization continue to be to raise enough money to fund our programs and basic operating expenses and to recruit new personnel to our Executive Board. It has been exciting this year to see our membership grow by another 25%, and we will work to involve these new members in our governance.