Remembering UAW Local 371
I grew up in New Castle in the 1950s. My father and grandfather worked at the Chrysler, as did the fathers of many of my friends. They were also members of United Auto Workers Local 371. The Chrysler and the union were part of the world I knew then. Local 371 sponsored my brother’s Babe Ruth baseball team. The Union Hall on North Main was a place I remember going to with my father from time to time.
- Walter Reuther, International President of the United Auto Workers, speaks at the dedication of Local 371’s new hall in New Castle in 1955. From the UAW Collection of the Henry County Historical Society
The UAW’s Solidarity magazine came to our house on a regular basis. It seemed to me then that the Chrysler and the UAW would always be important parts of New Castle. But now they are not. Thanks to government loans, Chrysler Corporation survived the economic meltdown of 2008, but its New Castle plant was gone well before that. The UAW survives too, but not at the Chrysler in New Castle. And, like most of the other unions, the UAW has lost much of its membership and much of its power. Today, the United States has pretty much returned to the pre-union era of the 1920s. Local 371 and the world I grew up in have been swept away.
In May 2011 I retired from my position as a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin Superior. With more time on hand, I decided to look into the history of that world I grew up in. Where did it come from and why had it disappeared? I began to read about the history of the auto industry, the history of Chrysler Corporation, the history of the UAW, the history of Indiana, and the history of New Castle. I contacted the UAW and discovered that some records from New Castle Local 371 were available at Wayne State University in Duluth.
- Page from the correspondence files between Local 371 and UAW headquarters in Detroit. Here the New Castle Local urges UAW leaders to work to raise wages for non-production workers (like floor sweepers) who were among the lowest paid employees at the Chrysler. This letter is dated June 18, 1945. Note the location of the union hall at that time on South 14th St. Used by permission of Wayne State University.
I also contacted Chuck Jarboe, Chairman of the Local 371 Retirees Group, the New Castle Henry County Public Library, and the Henry County Historical Society.
In October I made a trip to New Castle to talk with people there and to do work at the Public Library and the Historical Society. Everywhere people were helpful and everywhere I discovered new resources that helped me better understand local history. One of my most exciting finds was at the Henry County Historical Society. Among my earliest memories are some fragments connected to a long strike that caused my family some financial stress. In my reading I had discovered that there had been a 106 day strike by the UAW against Chrysler in 1950. Among the materials from UAW Local 371 that had been turned over to the Henry County Historical Society were some great photos from that strike.
- Photo taken during the early days of the 106 day strike in 1950. From the UAW Collection of the Henry County Historical Society.
Sitting there in the reading room with Historical Society Director, Ben Badgley, and Historical Society Volunteer, Joan Shell, I felt like a prospector who had found gold. Having worked as a board member and a volunteer with several local historical societies in other cities, I know how limited are the resources and how much depends upon volunteers who love history. I would like to thank all involved with the Henry County Historical Society for keeping it going all these years. I would also like to thank Don Davis, brought materials relevant to the history of the Chrysler to the Historical Society, and to thank Noel Blevins, a past President of Local 371, who brought materials from UAW Local 371 to it. I would also love to hear from anyone who would like to talk about UAW Local 371.
Richard Hudelson
- Richard Hudelson graduated from New Castle High School in 1964 and finished a PhD in philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1977. He is the author of five books and various articles and reviews. His most recent book, By the Ore Docks was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2006.
