Historical note: Founded in 1850 as the Printers' Union of the City of Albany, the Albany Typographical Union No. 4 has continued almost without a break until today.
In 1854 the Albany Printers' Union joined the National Typographical Union, thereby changing its name to its current form. The Albany Typographical Union became inactive that year and did not resume regular activity until it rejoined the National Typographical Union (NTU) in 1860. NTU, itself organized only in 1852, changed its name to the International Typographical Union with the addition of Canadian locals in 1869. The Albany Printing Pressmen's Union appears to have originally consisted of pressmen who had broken away from Local 4. On February 6, 1886, the Albany pressmen were chartered as a separate local of the ITU. Although there appears to be no documentation of this, bookbinders were thought to have originally been part of the Albany Typographical Union until they split off to form the Book-binders Society of Albany, International Brotherhook of Bookbinders, Local Union No. 10, in 1892. In the second half of the twentieth century, the Albany Typographical Union has merged witha number of locals over a broad geographical area: the Columbia County Typographical Union No. 896 in 1966, the Troy Typographical Union No. 52 in 1978, and the Poughkeepsie Typographical Union No. 315 in 1987. In 1988, the International Typographical Union (ITU) merged with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), with the former ITU operating as an autonomous sector of CWA. This development was the first significant step the ITU had made to bringing organized labor "closer to the creation of one huge union in the printing and electronic communications industry." Currently, the Albany Typographical Union No. 4 remains an autonomous local representing workers in the typographical trade.
From the description of Albany Typographical Union No. 4 records [microform], 1850-1988. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122621729
