Documents collected by Professor Vernon H. Jensen for his work on the non-ferrous metals industry. The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and its successor, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) were historically considered the radical wing of the non-ferrous metals miners' unions.
Professor Jensen (Ph.D., Univ. of California, 1939) taught labor economics at the University of Colorado between 1937 and 1945 and was a public panel member of the National War Labor Board during World War II. He was appointed to the faculty of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1946, where he remained for the balance of his academic career. He is an authority on collective bargaining and has written extensively on the history of labor relations on the waterfront and in the non-ferrous metals industry. The documents in this collection were gathered primarily for the latter project.
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was founded in 1893 by the Butte, Montana Miners' Union (WFM No. 1) and other Western hard rock miners' unions in Utah, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and South Dakota, in response to two decades of violent opposition by various mining corporations, and the federal, state and local governments. The WFM and its successor, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) were historically considered the radical wing of the non-ferrous metals miners' unions.
From the guide to the Vernon H. Jensen, collector. Files on the Western Federation of Miners and the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, 1893-1955., (Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library)
