Richard Lawrence Grace Deverall was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 20, 1911. He began work as a machinist apprentice in 1925 and continued his education at night school. Deverall later attended Newark Institute of Technology (1930), Columbia University (1931-1934), and Villanova College (1935-1938), where he received a BS in Sociology. A devoted Catholic, Deverall founded and co-edited The Christian Front (1936-1939), and its successor, Christian Social Action (1939-1942). Deverall began working with organized labor after moving to Detroit in 1939. While in Detroit he taught labor history at Assumption College in nearby Ontario, Canada, and became the first executive secretary of the Detroit branch of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists (1939-1940). In 1940 the United Automobile Workers Union (UAW) hired Deverall to work in its Education Department. He quickly advanced to Chief of the Labor Education post in the UAW (1940-1942). When the UAW reorganized the Education Department in 1942, Deverall moved to Washington and worked with the Office of War Information as a special advisor on labor matters. In mid-1943 Deverall quit the OWI and joined the United States Army. Deverall progressed from private to 2nd lieutenant during World War II and was stationed in post war Japan in a military capacity until 1948. He served as an MP in the 11th Airborne Division in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, and then later was stationed in Tokyo as the Chief of the Labor Education Branch, Labor Division, Economic and Societies Section. In this capacity Deverall created and supervised labor education programs in an attempt to assist in the creation of stable, democratic, anti-communist labor unions in reconstructed Japan. In August 1948 Deverall left the military and began working directly for organized labor. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) employed Deverall in a number of international positions throughout the 1950s. He was the Asia representative of the AFL's Trade Union Committee from 1949 to the middle of 1952. Deverall then held the same position in Japan, headquartered in Tokyo, from the middle of 1952 to 1955. Lastly, Deverall served as the AFL-CIO's Special Assistant to the Assistant General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Brussels, Belgium. The threat of communist infiltration in the Asian labor movement and throughout the world, as well as a strong dedication to Catholic social activism, preoccupied Deverall in all of his appointments in the military and the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s. From the mid-1940s through the mid 1950s Deverall published an endless stream of historically based political tracts that promoted his concerns about the growth of international communism abroad and the importance of a stable labor relations system with democratic trade unions to counter that influence. Deverall continued to publish extensively in newspapers and magazines on labor and politics, often in Catholic-based periodicals. He died in Florida in 1980.
From the description of The Richard Deverall papers. 1928-1959. (Catholic University of America). WorldCat record id: 70920987
