Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T14:09:44.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Lending a Hand to Labor: James Myers and the Federal Council of Churches, 1926–1947

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Elizabeth Fones-Wolf
Affiliation:
associate professor of history at West Virginia University.
Ken Fones-Wolf
Affiliation:
associate professor of labor studies at West Virginia University.

Extract

On 31 September 1929, James Myers, the industrial secretary of the Federal Council of Churches (FCC), arrived in Marion, North Carolina, to investigate the causes for the continuing industrial unrest that had swept across the southern textile industry since the spring. Shortly after Myers's arrival, as the textile workers attempted to picket the plant, sheriff's deputies fired into the crowd, killing six strikers and wounding twenty-five others. Myers's eulogy for the slain workers admonished the mill owners for the harsh working conditions and low wages, but mostly for their opposition to their workers' right to organize. He also scolded clergymen who argued that industrial conflict was “not the Church's business.” Over the ensuing months, Myers set an example of Christian involvement in labor unrest. He investigated the strike's impact on the community, he met with the governor, and he offered to help mediate the conflict. Dismayed by the suffering that he had uncovered, Myers also organized a relief campaign among church people on behalf of the families of the striking workers. Reflecting on Myers's efforts, the Christian Century declared that Myers stood “almost alone as representative of any active concern in the churches” in the midst of “appalling industrial warfare.” Otherwise, “the forces of organized religion would have to confess to an amazing indifference when confronted by the most acute industrial conflict of the year.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Stirring Rites Held for Marion Victims,” New York Times, 5 10 1929, 1, 8.Google Scholar

2. Saving the Honor of the Church,” Christian Century, 13 09 1929, 14001401.Google Scholar

3. Most of the work on Protestantism and labor focuses on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, Social Gospel Protestantism provided labor an alternative value system with which to measure capitalism's treatment of human beings and scriptural inspiration for labor's culture of solidarity and brotherhood. Although never without ambiguity or contradictions, premillennial visions of a more just and cooperative social order and an evangelical enthusiasm were part of trade unionism's culture before World War I. The eclipse of Protestantism's Social Gospel in the 1920s seemingly diminished the reform spirit of liberal groups. Moreover, the dominance of second-generation ethnic workers in mass production encouraged most historians to look elsewhere for the moral inspiration motivating unionists in the thirties. On nineteenth-century Protestantism and labor, see especially Gutman, Herbert G., Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working Class and Social History (New York: Vintage, 1976), chap. 2. For the early twentieth century,Google Scholar see Fones-Wolf, Ken, Trade Union Gospel: Christianity and Labor in Industrial Philadelphia, 1865–1915 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989);Google Scholar and Miller, Robin Moats, American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1919–1939 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958).Google ScholarMeyer, Donald B., The Protestant Search for Political Realism, 1919–1946 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 76106,Google Scholar sketches the ongoing activities of liberal Protestant clergy during the Depression and New Deal. In general, however, there has been a greater emphasis placed on Catholicism's role in providing aid to the emerging union movement in mass-production industries. On Catholicism and labor see Rosswurm, Steve, “The Catholic Church and the Left-Led Unions,” in The CIO's Left-Led Unions, ed. Rosswurm, Steve (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 119–37;Google ScholarBetten, Neil, Catholic Activism and the Industrial Worker, 19201940 (Gainsville: University Presses of Florida, 1976);Google ScholarPiehl, Mel, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and theOrigin of Catholic Radicalism in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982);Google ScholarSeaton, Douglas, Catholics and Radicals: The Association of Catholic Trade Unionists and the American Labor Movement from Depression to Cold War (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1981);Google ScholarHeineman, Kenneth J., “A Catholic New Deal: Religion and Labor in 1930s Pittsburgh,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 118 (1994): 363–94;Google ScholarFreeman, Joshua B., In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933–1966 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989);Google ScholarSchatz, Ronald W., The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse, 1923–1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983);Google ScholarGerstle, Gary, Working Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

4. Who's Who Among Columbia Alumni,” Columbia Alumni News, 4 04 1941, 4;Google Scholarclipping from National Republic, May 1927, box 52, record group 18, National Council of Churches records, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pa. (hereafter, box 52, NCC; other materials from the NCC archives, all of which are contained in record group 18, will be cited in similarfashion).Google Scholar

5. Selekman, Ben M., Sharing Management with the Workers: A Study of the Partnership Plan of the Dutchess Bleachery, Wappingers Falls, New York (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1924), 118.Google Scholar There is a large literature on the evolution of welfare capitalism. See, among many others: Brody, David, Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the 20th Century Struggle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chap. 2;Google ScholarBrandes, Stuart, American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976);Google ScholarJacoby, Sanford, Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985);Google ScholarZahavi, Gerald, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism: The Shoeworkers and Tanners ofEndicott Johnson, 1890–1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988);Google ScholarCohen, Lizabeth, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990);Google ScholarTone, Andrea, The Business of Benevolence: Industrial Paternalism in Progressive America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

6. McCartin, Joseph A., “An American Feeling: Workers, Managers and the Struggle over Industrial Democracy in the World War I Era,” in Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Promise, ed. Lichtenstein, Nelson and Harris, Howell John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 6783;Google ScholarJacoby, , Employing Bureaucracy, 187–90;Google ScholarNelson, Daniel, “The Company Union Movement, 1900–1937: A Reexamination,” Business History Review 56 (1982): 335–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Selekman, , Sharing Management, 118;Google ScholarMcCartin, , “ ‘An American Feeling,’ ” 67–86.Google Scholar

8. Selekman, , Sharing Management, 1920;Google ScholarKleeck, Mary Van, “Ten Years of the Rockefeller Plan Compared with Five Years of Employes' Representation at the Dutchess Bleachery,” Survey, 1 02. 1925, 510, 549.Google Scholar

9. Lauck, W. Jet, Political and Industrial Democracy, 17761926 (New York: Funk and Wagnails, 1926), 293–95.Google Scholar

10. Myers, James, “How a Shop Committee Cleaned up a Company Town,” Survey, 1 07 1924, 401–03, 424;Google Scholar idem, Representative Government in Industry (New York: George H. Doran, 1924), 8889;Google ScholarSelekman, , Sharing Management, 1720, 37–54, 70–77.Google Scholar

11. Selekman, , Sharing Management, 5470, 76–77.Google Scholar

12. Myers, , Representative Government, 6467,221–23.Google Scholar

13. Myers, , Representative Government, 3247,162,240–41.Google Scholar

14. Hutchinson, John A., We Are Not Divided: A Critical and Historical Study of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (New York: Round Table, 1941), 55, 99100.Google Scholar

15. Meyer, , Protestant Search for Political Realism, 5861, 89–96;Google ScholarHurd, Walter C., “The Labor and Industrial Program of the Federal Council of Churches, 1932–1940” (master's thesis, Columbia University, 1954), 1723;Google ScholarHutchinson, , We Are Not Divided, 6267, 110–12, 125–27;Google ScholarMiller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 221–22.Google Scholar

16. Carter, Paul A., The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel: Social and Political Liberalism American Protestant Churches, 1920–1940 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1971), 5969;Google ScholarMarty, Martin E., Modern American Religion, vol. 2, The Noise of Conflict, 1919–1941 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 221–24;Google ScholarStelzle, Charles, “Why Labor Deserts the Church,” World's Work, 11. 1927, 5455;Google ScholarHutchinson, , We Are Not Divided, 108109;Google ScholarMiller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 1830;Google ScholarJohnson, F. Ernest, “Facing Industrial Facts in the Churches,” Survey, 15 04 1925, 100101.Google Scholar

17. Myers was a liberal both theologically and politically. He believed the church should be active in society and should encourage the government to promote social and economic justice. Worth Tippy to Macfarland, Cavert, Samuel, and Johnson, F. E., 1 04 1925, and “Memorandum” (appointment contract), n.d. (box 52, NCC);Google ScholarHutchinson, , We Are Not Divided, 118–19.Google Scholar

18. Commission on the Church and Social Service minutes, 3 June 1926, 29–30 May 1928 (box 47, NCC); Meyer, Protestant Search for Political Realism, 70–71; Mountain Life and Work, 07 1930, 9.Google Scholar

19. What the Federal Council Does in Industrial Relations,” Homiletic Review, 10. 1929, 312;Google ScholarIndustrial Relations in a Hosiery Mill,” Information Service,19 05 1928, 112.Google ScholarMyers to Edlen Mills, 21 09. 1927; Annetta Dieckman to F. Ernest Johnson, 2 11. 1927; William Bauer to Myers, 12 Dec. 1927; Real Silk Employes Mutual Benefit Association to the Federal Councilof Churches, 24 March 1928 (box 53, NCC).Google Scholar

20. Miller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 6970, 82–83;Google Scholar “What the Federal Council Does in Industrial Relations,” 312; Allen, Harbor, “Two Blocks from Broadway,” Nation, 12 01. 1927, 3637;Google ScholarTrout, John M., “The Churches in a Community Crisis,” Christian Century, 3 07 1929, 863–66;Google ScholarThe New Bedford Strike,” Information Service, 10 11. 1928, 4;Google Scholar Commission on the Church and Social Service minutes, 20 April 1927,21–22 Sept. 1928, 4 Feb. 1929 (box 47, NCC); Marty, Noise of Conflict, 226. During the 1927–1928 coal strike in Colorado, the Federal Council found that “the rank and file of churches, ministers, and church members seemed to be largely uninformed and lacking in conscience on industrial problems” (“Industrial Relations in the Coal Industry of Colorado,” Information Service, 14 03 1931, 9).Google Scholar

21. Meyer, , Protestant Search for Political Realism, 99;Google ScholarMiller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 263–66;Google Scholar Commission on the Church and Social Service minutes, 3 June 1926, 20 April 1927 (box 47, NCC); The Church Appears in the Passaic Strike,” Christian Century, 3 06 1926, 701.Google Scholar

22. Moore and Aids Plan to Mediate Strike,” New York Times, 21 04 1926, 27;Google ScholarVillard, Oswald Garrison, “A Strike and an American,” Nation, 5 05 1926, 500.Google Scholar

23. Meyer, , Protestant Search for Political Realism, 8284;Google ScholarMarty, , Noise of Conflict, 225–26;Google ScholarWhat Happened in Detroit,” Information Service, 23 10. 1926, 13;Google ScholarA Blessing on Labor,” Christian Century, 30 09.1926, 1193.Google Scholar

24. American Federation of Labor, Proceedings, 1926, 143–52.Google Scholar

25. Nation, 20 10. 1926, 387–88.Google Scholar

26. Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, et al. , Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 212–35;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSalmond, John A., Gastonia 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995);Google ScholarTippett, Tom, When Southern Labor Stirs (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1931).Google Scholar

27. Myers, James, “Field Notes, Textile Strike in South,” University of Virginia Library; “The Textile Strikes in the South,” Information Service, 18 05 1929, 34;Google Scholar “Field Notes on Marion, North Carolina,” box 52, NCC; The Strikes at Marion, North Carolina,” Information Service, 28 12. 1929,113.Google Scholar

28. Myers, “Field Notes.”Google Scholar

29. Myers, , “Field Notes”; Hall, Like a Family, 124–26, 220–22.Google ScholarThe classic work on the relationship of the church and industry in the South is Liston Pope, Millhands and Preachers (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942).Google Scholar

30. Churches Petition for Textile Survey,” New York Times, 26 05 1929, 20;Google Scholar “The Strikes at Marion, North Carolina,” 11–12; Miller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 268.Google Scholar

31. Meyer, , Protestant Search for Political Realism, 91;Google ScholarMarion's Story,” Survey, 15 02. 1930, 589;Google Scholar“The Textile Strikes in the South”; “The Strikes at Marion, North Carolina,” esp. 6; “Brief Submitted to American Friends Service Committee on Need of Relief at Marion, North Carolina,” 18 Oct. 1929 (Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work, Committees andOrganizations: Federal Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S., 1929 folder, American Friends Service Committee Archives, Philadelphia, Pa., hereafter cited as AFSC).Google Scholar

32. Worth Tippy and W. B. Spofford to Bishop William M. Bell, 8 10. 1929 (box 52, NCC). Myers to Clarence E. Pickett, telegram, Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work, Committees and Organizations: FCC, 1929 folder, AFSC. Myers to Clarence E. Pickett, 15 Oct. 1929; Samuel McCrea Cavert and Reinhold Niebuhr to Clarence E. Pickett, 21 Oct. 1929 (FCC 1929 folder, AFSC). Clarence E. Pickett to Henry J. Cadbury, 11 Oct. 1929 (Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work Correspondence, General, 1929 folder, AFSC).Google Scholar

33. Picket, Clarence E., For More Than Bread: An Autobiographical Account of Twenty-Two Years Work with the American Friends Service Committee (Boston: Little Brown, 1953), 36;Google ScholarMyers, “Brief Submitted to American Friends Service Committee,” 18 Oct. 1929.Google Scholar

34. Myers, “Brief Submitted to American Friends Service Committee.”Google Scholar

35. “Minutes of the Relief Committee of the Social Service Commission,” 26 11. 1929, 16 Jan. 1930 (box 52, FCC). Myers to Pickett, 12 Dec. 1929; Myers to L. Hollingsworth Wood, 17 Dec. 1929 (FCC, 1929 folder, AFSC). Myers to Pickett, 18 Jan. 1930. James Myers, “The Relief Work in Marion, N.C., November 1929–August 1930” (Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work, Committees and Organizations, FCC, 1930 folder, AFSC), Industrial Division minutes, 17 March 1931 (box 51, NCC).Google Scholar

36. Relief Committee of Social Service Commission minutes, 26 Nov. 1929, Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work, General, 1929 folder, AFSC; Myers to Clarence E. Pickett, 12 Dec. 1929 (FCC, 1929 folder, AFSC); “The Relief Work in Marion, N. C, Nov. 1929–1930,” 16 July1930; Myers, “Field Notes on Trip to Marion, North Carolina, Jan. 7 to 10,1930”; Myers, “Memorandum,” 7 April 1930 (Home Service Section, Marion Relief Work, Committees and Organizations, FCC, 1930 folder, AFSC).Google Scholar

37. Myers to Robert Dexter, 27 May 1930 (box 52, NCC); Pickett to Myers, 7 Aug. 1930, AFSC; the Danville Strike,” Information Service, 29 11. 1930, 12.Google Scholar

38. “Danville Strike,” 2; “Brewing in Danville,” Survey, 15 Jan. 1931,446; Industrial Division, “Minutes,” 15 Oct. 1930 (box 51, NCC); Harbison, Stanley Lincoln, “The Social Gospel Career of Alva Wilmot Taylor,” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1975), 234–35.Google Scholar

39. Myers, James, “Close-ups in the Coal Fields,” New Republic, 16 09. 1931, 118–20;Google Scholar Myers, “Field Notes of Trip to West Virginia and Pennsylvania,” July 1931 (box 55, NCC); Morris, Homer Lawrence, The Plight of the Bituminous Coal Miner (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934), 119–31, 209–210;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWorkman, Michael E., “Political Culture and Coal Economy in the Upper Monongahela Region: 1776–1933,” (Ph.D. diss., West Virginia University, 1995), 480510;Google Scholar Myers to Clarence Pickett, 12 May 1931 (Committees and Organizations, FCC 1931 folder, AFSC); Pickett, For More Than Bread, 1940. Myers to Alva Taylor, 10 June 1931 (box 55, NCC). On Myers's role in the Coal Areas Relief Project see correspondence in AFSC and NCC records and New York Times, 14 July 1932, 8 Jan. 1933; Myers, James, “Rehabilitation in the Coal Fields,” Christian Century, 31 08. 1932, 1053–54;Google ScholarAmerican Friends Service Committee, Report of the Child Relief Work in the Bituminous Coal Fields, September 1, 1931–08 31, 1932 (New York: AFSC, 1932).Google Scholar

40. Myers to Alva Taylor, 10 June 1931 (box 55, Industrial Division, “Minutes,” 15 Oct. 1930, 8 Sept. 1931, Social Service Commission, “Activities in Industrial Relations,” 1931, Industrial Division Report, 1935 (box 51, NCC); “News Flashes of Recent Activities of the Industrial Secretary,” ca. 1939 (box 53, NCC); John D. Nolan to Myers, 29 May 1937 (box 54, NCC); Dunbar, Anthony, Against the Grain: Southern Radicals and Prophets, 1929–1959 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), 78.Google Scholar

41. Myers to Florence Quinlan, 20 Nov. 1930 (box 55, NCC); Myers, James and Laidler, Harry W., What Do You Know about Labor? (New York: John Day, 1956), 251;Google ScholarHigh Wages Urged as Idleness Cure,” New York Times, 27 01. 1931, 2;Google ScholarAsk United Effort in Jobs Problem,” New York Times, 6 06 1940, 19;Google Scholar“Transcript, Radio Address by Myers, March 10, 1934” (box 53), FCC press release, 14–15 Jan. 1938 (box 55, NCC);Google ScholarHurdn, , “Labor and Industrial Program,” 66–71; Industrial Division, “Minutes,” 21 09. 1933 (box 51, NCC).Google Scholar

42. Hurd, , “Labor and Industrial Program,” 59–60; “The Battle in the Textile Industry,” Information Service, 22 09. 1934, 1.Google Scholar

43. “Battle in the Textile Industry,” 1; Hall, Like a Family, 289–332; Irons, Janet, “The Challenge of National Coordination: Southern Textile Workers and the General Strike of 1934,” in “We Are All Leaders”: The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s, ed. Lynd, Staughton (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 7989;Google ScholarStatement on the Textile Strike,” Information Service, 22 09. 1934, 2.Google Scholar

44. Hall, Like a Family, 338–40; Seven Strikers Killed in South,” New York Times, 7 09. 1934;Google ScholarMediators Delve into Strike Claims,” New York Times, 8 09. 1934, 2;Google Scholar10,000 Pay Honor to Slain Pickets,” New York Times, 9 09. 1934, 3.Google Scholar

45. The Textile Strike,” Information Bulletin, 8 09. 1934, 14; “Battle in the Textile Industry,” 1–3.Google Scholar

46. Imperial Valley Labor Troubles,” Information Service, 5 05 1934, 25;Google Scholar Myers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 18 June 1936 (box 53, NCC); “Brief Digest of Trip to Arkansas by James Myers, June 2–10 in Connection with Cotton Choppers Strike,” reel 2, Howard Kester Papers; James Myers, “Press Release,” 8–9 June 1936, reel 2, Southern Tenant Fanners Union Papers; The Cotton Choppers' Strike,” Information Service, 27 06 1936, 16;Google ScholarGrubbs, Donald H., Cry from the Cotton: The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union and the New Deal (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971).Google Scholar

47. Industrial Division, “Minutes,” 10 March 1932 (box 51, NCC). Myers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 24 March 1934; Myers et al. to William S. Knudsen, 7 Jan. 1937; Homer Martin to Myers, 13 Jan. 1937; James Myers, “Report on Flint Situation,” undated [ca. Jan. 1937]; Bob Travis to Myers, 6 March 1937 (box 54, NCC). The General Motors Strike,” Information Service, 20 02. 1937, 12;Google ScholarFine, Sidney, Sit-down: The General Motors Strike of 1936–1937 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Myers to John A. Ryan, 15 June 1937 (box 54, NCC); Churchmen Urge Steel Agreement,” New York Times, 24 06 1937, 2.Google Scholar

49. Myers, James, “Notes from the Diary of a Modern Circuit Rider,” Forum, 10. 1937, 175–79.Google Scholar Myers to Samuel McCrea Cavert, 17 Nov. 1934; Industrial Division, “Minutes,” 11 June 1937 (box 51, NCC). James J. Bambrick to Myers, 20 Nov. 1934; Myers to Rev. Robert Searle, 13 March 1936; Myers to Mayor LaGuardia, 13 Feb. 1934 (box 54, NCC). Charles C. Webber, Clergymen Invade Industry,” World Tomorrow, 08. 1932, 230–31;Google ScholarHutchinson, We Are Not Divided, 109.Google Scholar

50. Says Capitalism Fails,” New York Times, 5 09. 1932, 20;Google Scholar“Address before First Christian Church,” Baltimore, Md., 17 Oct. 1932; FCC press release, Jan. 1936 (box 53, NCC).Google Scholar

51 Myers to John A. Vollenweider, 20 Sept. 1933 (box 52, NCC). Myers to Samuel Cavert, 17 Nov. 1934 (box 51, NCC). Hurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 61; Church-Labor Ties Urged on Missions,” New York Times, 5 01. 1932, 19;Google ScholarLouis Yagoda to Myers, 7 Aug. 1934 (box 55, NCC). Myers to Jacob S. Potofsky, 13 Oct. 1936, reel 1, Howard Kester Papers. Myers to Ramsay, 7 June 1938; Myers to Clinton Golden, 20 Nov. 1939 (box 1581, folder 297, John Ramsay Papers, Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia). SWOC Membership Meeting minutes, 16 April 1941, box B2, Howard Curtiss Papers, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. “Religious Duty to Join a Labor Union,” FCC press release, 6 Sept. 1937, reel 65, Operation Dixie Papers. John G. Ramsay to Myers, 23 May 1938, box 1579, folder 270, Ramsay Papers.Google Scholar

52. Fones-Wolf, Ken and Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth, “Conversion at Bethlehem: Religion and Union Building in Steel, 1930–42,” Labor History 39 (1998): 381–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Miller, , American Protestantism and Social Issues, 247–87;Google ScholarSalmond, John A., Miss Lucy of the CIO: The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason, 1882–1959 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988);Google Scholar Dunbar, Against the Grain, 7–15, 28–29, 67–82, 178–80. “Your Church and Your Union,” Textile Workers Union of America pamphlet, n.d., box 229, Ramsay Papers. Mark Starr to Myers, 3 Sept. 1940 (box 50, NCC). Lucy Mason to F. M. McConnell, 10 March 1938, reel 62, Operation Dixie Papers. Ramsay, John G., “How Can the Church Win the Laboring Man,” Michigan Christian Advocate, 28 02. 1946, 16.Google Scholar

54. Hutchinson, , We Are Not Divided, 120;Google ScholarConsumers' Cooperation,” Information Service, 7 09. 1935, 14.Google Scholar

55. Myers, James, “Kagawa's Message: What Shall Our Answer Be?World Outlook, 04 1936, 20, 30;Google ScholarInterfaith Conferences on Consumers' Cooperatives,” Christian Century, 11 03 1936, 395.Google Scholar On Myers's involvement in the establishment of a cooperative farm in Mississippi for evicted sharecroppers see: Howard Kester to Myers, 10 March 1936 and Myers to Kester, 11 April 1936 (reel 2); Kester to Myers, 25 April 1935 (reel 3, Kester Papers). On the history of the farm, Dunbar, Against the Grain, 115–20.

56. Hurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 75–76; Myers to Ralph Hetzel, 28 Dec. 1937, box 46, NCC; Myers, “Protestant Social Action,” manuscript, ca. 1941 (box 52, NCC); Myers, James, “Consumers' Cooperation and the Labor Movement,” Annals of the American Academy 191 (1937): 6269;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMyers, James, Labor and Co-ops (New York: Federal Council of Churches, 1944), 38.Google Scholar In the postwar era, labor adopted cooperativism as a way of politicizing consumption while strengthening unionism. Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 120.Google Scholar

57. Myers, “Churches and the Cooperatives,” 396; Myers, James, Churches in Social Action: Why and How (New York: Federal Council of Churches, 1943), 1314;Google ScholarHurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 59–65; “Report of the Industrial Relations Division,” 1945, reel 73, Operation Dixie Papers. On Myers's lobbying for state-level workers' compensation legislation, see, for instance, Myers to C. C. Haun, 22 May 1931;Myers to Frank K. Reese, 10 July 1931; Myers to C. Rankin Barnes, 16 July 1931 (box 55, NCC).Google Scholar

58. Hurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 59–64; Myers, James, “The National Recovery Program in the Light of Social Ideals,” Homiletic Review, 05 1934, 352–53;Google ScholarThe NRA Challenge to Labor,” Information Service, 10 03 1934, 14.Google Scholar Myers to Executive Committee, 1 March 1935; Myers to secretaries of Councils of Churches, 17 May 1935; Myers to Frazer M. Moffat, 21 May 1935 (box 55, NCC). Three Faiths Back Wagner Labor Bill,” New York Times, 26 03 1935, 12.Google Scholar

59. Industrial Division report, 1936 (box 51, NCC). Benjamin Marsh to Messrs. Goldstein, Myers, and McGowan, 24 Aug. 1937 (box 47, NCC). Auerbach, Jerold S., Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 3132.Google Scholar

60. Myers to Roswell Barnes et al., 15 04 1936; Cavert to Worth Tippy, 16 April 1936; B. Y. Landis to Myers, 18 August 1937; Myers to Pastor, 27 January 1939 (box 47, NCC).Google Scholar

61. Hurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 23–24; Harbinson, “Social Gospel Career of Alva Wilmot Taylor,” 234–35.Google Scholar

62. Myers to Barnes, 4 May 1942, box 52, NCC. A.F. of L. Resolves to Unionize South,” New York Times, 16 10. 1929, 22;Google Scholar “Danville Mill Head Hits Strike Tactics,” 23 Jan. 1931, 16. Frederick Lynch, Labor and the Church,” Commonweal, 25 12. 1929, 221.Google ScholarE. K. Reagin to S. M. Cavert, 6 April 1942 (box 51, NCC). Textile Bulletin editorial in “Comments on the Work of the Industrial Division” (box 46, NCC). Myers to John G. Ramsay, 7 June 1938, box 1581, folder 297, Ramsay Papers. S. C. Enck to Federal Council of Churches, 10 March and 20 April 1938 (box 52, NCC).Google Scholar

63. Hutchinson, We Are Not Divided, 124–25; Infected with Bolshevistic Communism?Christian Century, 8 02. 1939, 174–75;Google ScholarChurch Leaders Ask if Council is ‘Red,’” New York Times, 20 12. 1936, pt. 2, 2;Google ScholarCouncil of Churches Assailed by M'Comb,” New York Times, 12 12. 1938, 15.Google Scholar

64. Cavert to Myers, 13 11. 1943 (box 53, NCC). Hurd, “Labor and Industrial Program,” 59A–59B. Myers to Howard Kester, 30 July 1930, reel 2, Howard Kester Papers.Google Scholar

65. “Labor Sunday Message,” 1941, box 1573, folder 225, Ramsay Papers. “Report, Audit, and Plans, Industrial Division,” 10 April 1941; Frank Morrison to Myers, 31 Oct. 1933; Myers to George E. Haynes, 19 July 1935; A. Philip Randolph to Myers, 6 August 1935 (box 46, NCC). Myers and George Haynes to the editor, 7 Jan. 1943 (box 53, NCC).Google Scholar

66. Roswell Barnes to John Ramsay, 9 March 1944 (box 297); James Myers and Liston Pope to members of the Industrial Relations Division, 1 Oct. 1945 (box 1581, folder 287, Ramsay Papers). Richard Poethig, Cameron Hall: Economic Life, and the Ministry of the Laity,” American Presbyterian 72 (1994): 3341;Google ScholarFones-Wolf, Elizabeth, Selling Free Enterprise, 230–44.Google Scholar

67. “Quotes From Speech of James B. Carey,” Workers Defense League luncheon honoring James Myers, 8 12. 1945; address by Liston Pope, Workers Defense League luncheon, 8 Dec. 1945 (box 55, NCC).Google Scholar

68. Paul Cotton to James Myers, 13 Sept. 1933, box 55, NCC. J. N. Perkins to Ramsay, 25 Oct. 1933 (box 1587); Ramsay to Gifford Pinchot, 6 Feb. 1934 (box 1590, Ramsay Papers). James A. Wechlser, “The Man Bethlehem Steel Couldn't Buy,” PM, 12 Feb. 1941,18; John G. Ramsay to Henry Lee Robinson, 8 June 1946 (box 1561, Ramsay Papers). Ramsay, John G., “How the Church Can Win the Laboring Man?Michigan Christian Advocate, 28 02. 1946, 1617.Google Scholar John Ramsay oral history, 16 Dec. 1976, 16, Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Pennsylvania State University. Ramsay, John G., “I Carry a Union Card,” Presbyterian Life, 4 09. 1948, 16, 28, 29. Fones-Wolf, “Conversion at Bethlehem.”Google Scholar

69. Miller's American Protestantism and Social Issues provides a number of suggestive examples of local church involvement with organized labor, 275–87.Google Scholar