9 September
“The spirit of labor speaks to us loudly and clearly through the pages of the oral history interviews in the Iowa Labor Collection. In creating an index to these interviews we have tried to honor this spirit of labor. In so doing we hope to do justice to the Iowa trade unionists who have taken part in this project.”
– from the Introduction to the 2003 ILHOP Index
In 2003, the State Historical Society of Iowa published a print index that compiled transcript-level indexes for what was, at the time, a collection of approximately 1,200 analog interviews. The 2003 index was compiled by Janet Weaver, Spencer Howard, and Mary Bennett and was made possible through the assistance of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
In 2018, the University of Iowa Labor Center received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand transcription and indexing to cover those interviews left over from the 2003 project along with those collected since 2013. The result was the ILHOP Master Transcript Index (MTI), an ongoing effort to provide a living digital resource tool for the collection as a whole.
The MTI is made available as a downloadable and searchable PDF subject to periodic updates and revision as new interviews are processed.
Organization:
Entries, headings, and subheadings are organized alphabetically. Identifiers are organized alphabetically by a geographic identifier, surname (i.e., last name) of interviewee, date of interview (if multiple interviews were conducted with the same person) and a page number or range. For example:
Geographic Identifiers:
Geographic identifiers reflect where an interview was recorded, the largest city or town nearby where the interview was recorded, or where the majority of the Iowa-related content in the interview took place.
The use of geographic identifiers is an artifact of the way in which the collection was initially organized. As interviews came in from the field, staff from the State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) grouped them in boxes according to where an interview took place, with single, geographically isolated interviews grouped with larger concentrations. When SHSI staff compiled the original ILHOP index (2003), they retained this organization in their identifiers.
Interviewers since 2013 have retained geographic identifiers for purposes of continuity, although, as increasing numbers of interviews have taken place outside of Iowa, they have shifted to identifiers that reflect subject matter rather than place of interview. For example, while interviews with former members of the United Electrical Workers Local 896-Campaign to Organize Graduate Students (COGS) were conducted in locations across the US, they were all assigned Iowa City as a geographic identifier to correspond with the bulk of the Iowa-related subject material.
Geographic identifiers usually reflect the bulk of Iowa-related material in any particular interview, but they should not be used as a substitute for consulting subject headings, either in IDL or the MTI. This word of caution is particularly important for interviews conducted with people who traveled to and through Iowa. For example, interviews with recent immigrants and refugees often contain substantial material related to people’s lives before coming to Iowa. So, while an interview with a Liberian immigrant meatpacking worker in Waterloo will have “Waterloo” as its geographic identifier, the interview in question might contain substantial material regarding Liberia and other places where the interviewee lived and worked.
As of 2021, the only non-Iowa geographic identifier in the collection is Chicago. It was assigned to only one interviewee, Ralph Helstein, a former president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, who was interviewed by Merle Davis in Chicago in May 1983.
Below is a link to a PDF of the 2003 ILHOP Index. The file comprises 273 pages. By clicking on the link, you can view, download, and browse the file. The index is subject to continuous revision and updates, and new editions will be posted as they become available. If you have questions, please contact project staff.
DOWNLOAD THE 2003 ILHOP INDEX
Photo caption: Workers at Standard Kollsman Industries in Ottumwa, Iowa, c. 1960. Source: State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City.
Photo caption: Boarding a bus. Dubuque, Iowa [April 1940]. Source: Library of Congress. For stories from Dubuque bus drivers, see the interview with Hugh Kelly.
Photo caption: Excavation on Medical Laboratory site on the west side of the [Iowa] river [in Iowa City]. For stories from operating and stationary engineers, see the interviews with Wayne McDonnell and Tony McKeone. Source: State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City.