Public Figures:

Joseph (Joe) Jacobs

Jacobs, Joseph (Joe)
Interviewed by: Clifford Kuhn
August 15, 1990
Box B-4, Folder 1; 51 pp.

Joe Jacobs has been a labor lawyer in the South since 1929. He has served as counsel for the Southeast Building Trades Conference, general counsel and Southern director for the United Textile Workers of America, Southern counsel for the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, as well as being an active member of Workmen's Circle, a labor-oriented Jewish fraternal order.

Among topics discussed: Family background; parents' background in Poland; emigration to Paterson, N.J.; subsequent migration to Birmingham; father's employment at ACIPCO; family name change fromYuskowitz to Jacobs; father's butcher business; Workmen's Circle; Hebrew school; move to New York in Jacobs's junior year of high school; father's union activity; recruitment of blacks in Birmingham to work in West Virginia mines as strikebreakers; the Morris Schwartz Theater; Labor Lyceum in Atlanta; return to Atlanta in 1924; Socialist Party.

Interviewed by: Clifford Kuhn
October 22, 1990
Box B-4, Folder 2; 45 pp.

Among topics discussed: Thomas Mines work experience; "installment houses"; working his way through Cornell; working summers at a Long Beach hotel; Jacobs's education at Cornell; demonstrating against the ROTC; attendance at night law school; John McCallum; Workmen's Circle; Nathan Stolar; M.J. Merlin; United Textile Workers; prominent Jewish families in Atlanta.

Interviewed by: L. Hough and Clifford Kuhn
March 6, 1991
Box B-4, Folder 3; 79 pp.

Among topics discussed: The Depression in Atlanta; Worker's Alliance; attempt to organize the WPA; Angelo Herndon case; Civilian Conservation Corps; Max Zaritsky; NRA (The Blue Eagle); representation of unions; Standard Hat Plant; "The Vulture's Nest"; negotiations and organization in ladies garment workers industry; quotas in garment industry; teachers union; David Dubinsky; CIO; AF of L; Granite Cutters; Steel Workers; Butch Hathaway; Southern Bed Spring Co.; Saul Klenburg Plant; Dalton tufted-fabric manufacture; union activity in Dalton; Carl Karston; Allie Mann; prominent union leaders in Atlanta; J. Allen Couch; Cates family; Mary Barker; Maude Ireland; listing of local unions; Eva Galambos; Bill Green and the AFL-CIO and John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers.

Interviewed by: Clifford Kuhn and Millie Beck
July 5, 1991
Box B-4, Folder 4; 60 pp.

Among topics discussed: Cases involving Section 7A, Title VII of the EEO; Taft-Hartley Act; North American Rayon and American Bamburg plant; Childersburg, Ala. plant; Harold Dworet; Sylacauga; Beauknit; Greenville, Ala.; Hat Corporation of America; Carmen Lucia; G.D. Dunham, organizer for AF of L; anti-union activity; 1942 convention of Hatters; Reform, Ala., IBEW plant; Tuscaloosa, Ala., Fuebtam plant; Rechtman, cap manufacturer from Detroit; Dan River Mills; Demopolis, Ala.; handbilling; Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Decatur, Ala.; organizing a flour mill; desegregation of union committees; U.S. Rubber Co. textile mill at Winnsboro, S.C.; segregated unions.

Interviewed by: Clifford Kuhn and Millie Beck
July 12, 1991
Box B-4, Folder 5; 80 pp.

Among topics discussed: Lakewood auto strike of 1936; General Motors Fisher Body plant; Max Zaritsky; "dong" men; T.O. Sturdivant, Atlanta chief of police; David Dubinsky; Ralph McGill; the "scab" story; Tom West; "missionary speeches"; Noel Bedow; Simmons Bed Spring Co.; "Vulture's Nest"; steel plant union organization; coal mines; Saul Klenburg plant; Workmen's Circle; Barney Firestone; Jacobs's early residence in Atlanta; Joe Silver; Jewish experience in Russia in early 1900s; Jewish "Shule"; "Shulervorwaltung"; Lewis Cenker; Merlin family; Carl Karston; German Jews; Socialist Party; segregated meetings; enforcement of segregation in Birmingham; G.H.W. Thomas; Ku Klux Klan; Mildred Kingloff; Sam Kingloff.

Interviewed by: Clifford Kuhn and Millie Beck
August 16,1991
Box B-4, Folder 6; 100 pp.

Among topics discussed: Bob Segal; Lithonia granite cutters strike; Davidson family; Judge Jim Davis; Steve Nance of ATU; Myles Horton of Highlander; David Dubinsky; Max Zaritsky; merger of Millinery Union and Hatter's Union; Winnsboro, S.C.; anti-union campaigns; George Googe; printer's union; National Labor Relations Board; E.L. "Abby" Abercrombie; Laundry Workers union organization; attempts to unionize cab drivers; National Linen Service; affiliation of Laundry Workers union with Teamsters; organization of laundry workers in Georgia; War Labor Board; Tony Valente; tactics used for obtaining wage increases; Herbert Haas; racially mixed unions; changes in black attitudes; Yellow Cab monopoly; Jacobs's disagreements with Abercrombie; Charlie Elrod; Harris Jacobs; IRS case against laundry workers union; Al Kehrer; First Union Bank; mob influence; international unions; TWUA; congressional committee that investigated union corruption; Lloyd Clennard; Robert Kennedy; car rental deal; Tony Valente; George Meany; Alex Rose; government efforts to get Jacobs to testify against unions; Ethics Committee; "heresy" trials; Lloyd Clennard changes name to Roberts.

SEE ALSO: Joseph Jacob Collection in the Southern Labor Archives, Special Collections.