Collection Guides
The ILGWU Records
In 1973, the ILGWU Archives was established by the international union. Under the direction of Vice President and General Manager of the Cloak Joint Board Henoch Mendelsund, ILGWU Archivist Robert Lazar, Ethel Goldwasser, and other union staff maintained the ILGWU Archives until they closed in 1987. That year, President Jay Mazur arranged for the transfer of the ILGWU records from the ILGWU Archives at the union's international headquarters in New York City to the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University's Ithaca campus.
Beginning with the first transfer of records in 1987 until the ILGWU's merger with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) in 1995, the ILGWU regularly sent its non-active records to the Kheel Center, resulting in a substantial and varied body of material. Since 1995, additional ILGWU materials have periodically been sent to the Kheel Center from the offices of UNITE, UNITE-HERE, and Workers United. These records, totaling more than 2,500 linear feet, document the rich and complex history of the ILGWU and the women's garment industry in the United States.