It's been a hot one for the last few days here at Hagley Museum and Library, so we're headed for the shore!
This image was cropped from a panoramic photograph taken on May 16, 1948 and shows the attendees of the 17th biennial convention of the International Fur and Leather Workers Union of the United States and Canada. The convention took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the photograph was taken on the city's famous 'Steel Pier', a 1,000 foot long pier of the boardwalk that featured an amusement park, concert space, and touring exhibitions.
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union (IFLWU) was founded in 1913. A major player in the early labor movement, the union was represented and led by a number of far-left union organizers and political activists, including members of the Communist Party. This eventually led to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelling the union in 1949, along with ten other unions. In 1955, the IFLWU dissolved via merger into the union of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.
This photograph is part of Hagley Library's Amalgamated Leather Companies, Inc. photographs and label (Accession 1986.230) collection, a small collection documenting Amalgamated Leather Companies, Inc., which manufactured black and colored glazed kid and other classes of leather used largely in making shoes in the early to mid-twentieth century. The company began doing business as the F.J. Blatz & Brother Co. in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where they made kid leather.
In 1919, F.J. Blatz & Brother Co. took over the business of F. Blumenthal & Co., a Wilmington, Delaware business founded in 1890 that manufactured black and colored glazed kid and other classes of leather used largely in making shoes. The firm then reincorporated in Wilmington as the Amalgamated Leather Companies. Manufacturing ceased in 1966, and Amalgamated Leather Companies, Inc., was dissolved in 1967.
To view this collection online now, including the full panoramic image, in Hagley's Digital Archives, just click here.