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Newspaper Summit County Labor News (Akron, Ohio) 1923-1976

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About Summit County Labor News (Akron, Ohio) 1923-1976

This newspaper was a weekly four-page pro-labor publication serving Akron, Ohio, and surrounding communities from 1923 to 1976. As a member of the International Labor Press of America, it reported on “news of interest from the various local unions” and described itself as a “Non-Partisan Newspaper published in the best interests of Organized Labor and the entire Community.”

Throughout the run of the Summit County Labor News, Akron was known as the “Rubber Capital of the World” due to its concentration of tire and rubber manufacturers, namely Goodyear, Firestone, and B.F. Goodrich. While the Labor News dealt in all labor-related topics, ranging from local to international, Akron’s rubber industry and its workers often took a prominent place in the paper’s pages. That coverage spanned decades of the twentieth century marked by World War II, recurrent disputes between labor and capital, and some of the peaks of Akron as an industrial center.

By 1933, Alex Eigenmacht, a Hungarian American immigrant and printer, was working as the Labor News’s publisher. The noted Ohio journalist and author Ruth McKenney credited Eigenmacht with introducing the concept of sit-down strikes to Akron rubber workers in 1936, though this story is perhaps apocryphal. Wilmer Tate, a fervent local labor activist and organizer, served as the paper’s editor. By the early 1940s, however, Eigenmacht was acting in both capacities, which he continued to do until the late 1950s, when operations were passed off to Martin Bliman and the Exchange Printing Co.

As a publication seeking to promote the interests of area unions and the working class, the Summit County Labor News only accepted advertising offers from businesses considered friendly to labor. Their pages tended not to carry an abundance of advertisements; many of the ads that were present promoted local businesses or products marketed as pro-union. Examples can be seen in an advert on June 16, 1944, for wool slacks at Akron’s Carlton’s Clothes noted as “100% Union”; likewise, in the issue of November 10, 1950, an ad for Mail Pouch chewing tobacco conspicuously displays its “Union Made” status.

Provided By: Ohio History Connection, Columbus, OH

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Summit County Labor News (Akron, Ohio) 1923-1976

Dates of Publication

  • 1923-1976

Created / Published

  • Akron, Ohio : Summit County Labor News, -1976.

Headings

  • -  Labor unions--Ohio--Newspapers
  • -  Akron (Ohio)--Newspapers
  • -  Summit County (Ohio)--Newspapers
  • -  Labor unions
  • -  Ohio
  • -  Ohio--Akron
  • -  Ohio--Summit County
  • -  United States--Ohio--Summit--Akron

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began in 1923.
  • -  -v. 56, no. 5 (Jan. 30, 1976).
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 10, no. 14, (Apr. 15, 1932).

Medium

  • volumes

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn78003992

OCLC Number

  • 3936977

ISSN Number

  • 0039-5064

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Summit County Labor News Akron, Ohio -1976. (Akron, OH), Jan. 1 1923. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn78003992/.

APA citation style:

(1923, January 1) Summit County Labor News Akron, Ohio -1976. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn78003992/.

MLA citation style:

Summit County Labor News Akron, Ohio -1976. (Akron, OH) 1 Jan. 1923. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn78003992/.