Muncy - Relentless Reformer

Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America

SERIES EDITORS
WILLIAM CHAFE, GARY GERSTLE, LINDA GORDON, AND JULIAN ZELIZER

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Relentless Reformer: Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America
by Robyn Muncy

ROBYN MUNCY

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON & OXFORD

Copyright 2015 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press

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Cover photograph by Chase LTD., Photography, the George Meany Memorial AFL-CIO Archives, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Maryland Libraries.
Photograph AFL-CIO, used with permission.

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 9780-691122731

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935546

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Sabon LT Std, Folio Std, and Egyptienne Becker

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in the United States of America

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FOR MOM, DAD, AND MER

I could write nearly as long a story of my adventures researching Josephine Roches life as I wrote about her life itself. Susan Ware was the first person who encouraged me to pursue a full biography of Roche. She set me on the path by contracting an entry on Roche for Notable American Women (Belknap Press, 2004). Susan has since read proposals and conference papers about Roche and at every point offered sound advice and effective encouragement. Thank you, Susan. I also want to thank here a particular labor historian, who, when I informed him I might write a book on Josephine Roche, referred to her as a toady of John L. Lewis. That description was so at odds with everything I had learned about Roche to that point that it gave me extra incentive to take the plunge into biography.

As every historian does, I have depended on many archivists and librarians. Special thanks to Walter Bowman at the State of Kentucky Archives; Larry DeWitt at the Social Security Administration Archives in Baltimore; Michael Hussey at the National Archives in College Park; Barry Kernfeld in the Labor History Collection at the Pennsylvania State University Libraries; Carol Leadenham and Ron Bulatoff at the Hoover Institution; William LeFevre at Wayne State Universitys Walter P. Reuther Library and Archives; Halyna Myroniuk at the University of Minnesotas Immigration History Research Center; Gayle Richardson in the Manuscripts Division of the Huntington Library; Michael Ridderbusch at the University of West Virginia Libraries; Cynthia Rand in the Denver Public Librarys Western History Collection; Angie Reinecke in the Archives at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville; Dean Rogers at Vassar Colleges Special Collections; Ellen Shea at Radcliffes Schlesinger Library; Frank Tapp at the Auraria Library in Denver; Eileen Witte in the Vassar College Alumnae Office; and all the wonderful archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, especially Bob Clark. The biggest shout-out goes to David Hays at the University of Colorado at Boulder for years and years of help with Roches own papers and other collections in the Archives of the Norlin Library.

For special efforts in providing photographs, thank you to Jennifer Sanchez of the University of Colorado Libraries, Coi E. Drummond-Gehrig of the Denver Public Library, Melissa VanOtterloo of the Stephen H. Hart Library and Research Center in Denver, and John G. Lewis.

Dr. George Strassler of Neligh, Nebraska, deserves a chapter of thanks. On behalf of the Antelope County Historical Society, he responded to a query I sent in June 2007, and we have been corresponding ever since. George provided photographs of nineteenth-century Neligh and dug up information on Roches family that I never could have located myself. He spent hours mining newspapers and public records in Neligh as well as Omaha. Collaborating with him has been one of the unexpected delights of this project, and I thank him profoundly for the material aid as well as his enthusiasm for the biography.

For sharing her own work on Josephine Roche, thanks to Rachel Greenfield, and for eagerness to have the book in her hand, the same to Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League.

Thanks, too, for financial support from several institutions. The University of Maryland at College Park supported two semester-long sabbaticals and the Universitys Graduate Research Board a semesters research leave. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library offered a travel grant, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars a fellowship in 20072008. I began writing the biography at the Center, which invited me back as a Public Policy Scholar in summer 2009. The Center was the best imaginable place to write and connected me with Angela Cavalucci and Kristen Kelley, who were superb research assistants.

Many people have read chapters, conference papers, and articles that were part of this project. For their help, thanks to Edward Berkowitz, Miriam Cohen, Thomas Dublin, Maureen Flanagan, Gary Gerstle, Paul Gibson, Marie Gottschalk, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Edward Linenthal, Clare Lyons, Laura Mayhall, Sonya Michel, Sidney Milkis, Becky Muncy, Bob Muncy, Meredith Muncy, Elisabeth Perry, Tess Speranza, Tony Speranza, Landon Storrs, Leslie Woodcock Tentler, and Susan Ware. A special thanks to Richard Mulcahy, who knows more about the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund than anyone else on earth and read more than one draft of my thinking about the fund. Joyous thanks to my draft reading group from the Wilson Center for monthly food and fellowship since 2007. This devoted group of scholars, activists, and friends has read drafts of many chapters: Marie-Therese MT Connolly, Mary Ellen Curtin, Matthew Dallek, Deirdre Moloney, Philippa Strum, Patricia Sullivan, Wendy Williams, and Salim Yaqub. For reading the entire manuscript when it was much longer than the book version, thanks beyond words to Linda Gordon, Chuck Myers, and an anonymous reader for Princeton University Press. You dramatically improved the final product. Thank you, too, to anyone I have inadvertently omitted from the list.

I so appreciate the help and support of Princeton University Press. Brigitta van Rheinberg first signed the project when it was only a glimmer in my eye; Chuck Myers took a full draft to the Board of Editors; and Eric Crahan has brought it the last mile with crucial technical and administrative help from the remarkable Eric Henney and Ellen Foos and copy editor Jennifer Harris. Many, many thanks to each of you. I am thrilled to place Roches biography in the Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America Series at Princeton. Thanks especially to series editors Linda Gordon and Gary Gerstle for their support of the project since its inception.