Collection IDTape 690A

Size10 tape recordings

Collection Description The Kenneth Fiester interview is part of the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) Oral History Project, a series of tape-recorded interviews conducted with TWUA leaders by James A. Cavanaugh of the Wisconsin Historical Society staff. The interviews document the origins, growth, and decline of the TWUA, internal disputes, relations with other unions, organizing drives, major strikes, and gains made through collective bargaining, as well as textile unionism prior to the formation of the TWUA. Specific references are made to organizing activities in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Kenneth Fiester (1911-1981) was born in Orange, NJ and spent the first thirty-five years of his life in northern New Jersey. In 1932 he earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Newark College of Engineering, but his real interest was journalism. Between 1936 and 1946, he was a reporter with the Newark Call. He served as president of the Newark local of The Newspaper Guild from 1940 to 1942 and again from 1944 to 1946. In 1947, he became editor of Textile Labor, the publication of the Textile Workers Union of America. Fiester helped found the International Labor Press Association (ILPA) in 1955 while serving as publications editor and public relations director of the TWUA in New York. In 1957, he moved to Detroit as publications director of the United Auto Workers and was the first editor of its publication, Solidarity.

Fiester moved to Washington in 1959 to join the AFL-CIO public relations staff. He was publications director of the industrial union department when he retired in the early 1970s. He was ILPA secretary-treasurer from 1961 to 1969 and its president from 1969 to 1971. After the early 1970s, he became a freelance writer-editor for various labor publications and also helped edit a newsletter published by the U.S. Department of Labor. He was a lifetime member of the NAACP and a member of the National Press Club.

Collection Contents James Cavanaugh interviewed Fiester for five hours in a Washington, DC, hotel room on April 10, 1978, and for four-and-a-half hours in his living room in Bowie, MD, on April 11th.

The collection guide provides a brief outline of the interviews as well as information concerning the best way to access the tapes. The outline highlights mentions of Newark on Tape 1 Side 1, including discussion of Fiester's experiences working for the Newark Call and his participation in the first big Newspaper Guild strike (at the Newark Ledger in 1934) by picketing, by writing reviews for the movie reviewer of the Sunday Call who was active in the Guild's city committee, and by making a dozen stink bombs in a chemistry lab where he worked. Fiester also spends about ten minutes discussing the background of the Newark Call and its takeover by the Newark Evening News.

FormatAudio materials

SubjectsJournalism / Journalists; Labor History

Time Period20th Century

LanguageEnglish

Access policyOpen for research

Finding AidYes