Local 1199 Records
Another union that spearheaded labor organizing amongst Black and Hispanic hospital workers was the Local 1199 health and hospital worker union, originally founded by Jewish hospital workers in New York City in the 1930s. Local 1199 gradually organized more and more Black and Latino workers, who were generally poorly paid and previously unorganized. Some strikes in the 1950s and 1960s stunned the public for their militancy. Martin Luther King publicly gave his support to the union and often spoke at their rallies. These records document the union’s efforts to reach out to Latino community organizations. Female leadership came to prominence within the union in the 1970s, in a period of factional strife. Records include strike files, arbitration decisions, newsletters, minutes, and oral history interviews with activists. Interviewees include Doris Turner, who became union president, and various women activists such as Thelma Bowles, Rose Brand, Grace Glassberg, Lillian Godoff, Sarah Goldstein, and Hilda Joquin.
Kheel Center Resources
This collection consists of the first part of a continuing study of the roots and impact of unionization in New York City's voluntary hospitals, including a book titled “Building a Union in the Hospitals: the Organization of Local 1199 at Montefiore Hospital, 1948-1958” by Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg.
#5206-D Local 1199 Drug Division Records
Collection #5206-D Local 1199 Drug Division Records includes Local 1199 meeting minutes from 1958-59, reports from Upper Manhattan 1951-1959, as well as from Brooklyn from 1959-1961 in boxes 7, 17, and 23.
#6140 Local 1199 Bread and Roses Cultural Project
Collection #6140 includes Moe Foner correspondence from 1956-1959, archival materials concerning Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Local 1199 records from the 1950s, material on the New York City Hospital Strike of 1959 and other hospital strikes, as well as records on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King’s involvement with the Local 1199 in boxes 1 folders 2 and 20, and in box 3 folders 8, 22, and 28-30.
#5206-pr Local 1199 President Leon Davis Records
Collection #5206-PR includes correspondence with RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union) regarding meetings and current issues, as well as meeting minutes from 1950-1969, resolutions, president’s reports, financial statements, and financial reports in box 26 folder 1 and 3. In box 2 folder 3-4, there is rights correspondence and press release information regarding 1199 “Negro History Week Celebration”, Leon Davis’s certificate of lifetime membership to the National American Negro Freedom Movement, telegrams from Davis to President Lyndon B. Johnson regarding civil rights, correspondence of several other civil rights leaders, Columbia correspondence with professors, journalists, and 1199 members, and an agreement, list of students, flyers, form letters, and invitations about the Community Organization Program sponsored by the 1199 and the Columbia University School of Social Work.
#5929 Local 1199 Bread and Roses Cultural Records
Collection #5929 Local 1199 Bread and Roses Cultural Records includes 1950s news clippings in boxes 10-12.
#5206-x Local 1199 Clippings and News Releases
This collection includes 1950s Local 1199 press releases and news clippings in box 1 folders 5-10.
Collection #5510 Local 1199 contains various hospital strike records.
More can be searched here:
https://rare.library.cornell.edu/finding-aids-for-archival-and-manuscript-collections/