Switchmen's Union of North America Lake Shore Lodge 55 Membership Registers, 1898
Collection Number: 5590

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.

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Switchmen's Union of North America Lake Shore Lodge 55 Membership Registers #5590. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.

Related Collections: 5034: Switchmen's Union of North America Records 5034 MB: Switchmen's Union of North America Memorabilia 5034 P: Switchmen's Union of North America Photographs 5084: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Records 5405 mf: Switchmen's Union of North America Constitutions on Microfilm 5406 mf: Switchmen's Union of North America Arbitration on Microfilm 5447: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Unification Minutes and Convention Proceedings 5556: Switchmen's Union of North America Additional Records 5556 AV: Switchmen's Union of North America Audio-Visual Materials 5613: Switchmen's Union of North America Oakland Lodge 158 Meeting Minutes 5630: W.B. Meyers Papers