Guide to the Switchmen's Union Of North America Records,
[ca.1886-1970]

The Switchmen's Union of North America is among the older of the railway brotherhoods. Beginning in 1877 with the formation of a local Switchmen's organization in Chicago, the movement became national when the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association of North America held its first meeting nine years later.

This association was destroyed, as a result of a disastrous lockout by the Chicago Northwestern and the 1888 strike against the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy which had equally unfortunate results. Building on what was left of the S.M.A.A., several lodges met in Kansas City in October of 1854 and formed the Switchmen's Union of North America.

By the time of its merger into the United Transportation Union in 1969, the single Chicago labor organization of 1877 had grown to international status with 275 lodges in the United States and Canada having a combined membership of 12,000.

Included in this collection are constitutions; by-laws, convention and Board of Director Minutes; officer's records; financial documents; strike, arbitration, wage and vacation files and a host of ancillary documents and photographs as well as oral history transcripts in which S.U.N.A. leaders discuss the merger with the U.T.U. The collection, in addition, contains memorabilia including convention badges, union buttons, broadsides, initiation relics and a host of other fascinating artifacts which bring to life the ritual which was so much a part of early union life.