This purpose of this project is to digitize, organize, and catalog approximately 18 hours of recorded sessions of member education performed by the United Auto Workers Region 1-D and the UAW Education Department from the period of 1969-1974. These recordings currently exist in compact cassette format; there are 11 tapes in all. The recorded sessions include speeches from a number of notable union leaders from UAW history, including Walter Reuther, Leonard Woodcock, Owen Bieber, Brendan Sexton, and many others.
These tapes come to me from my grandfather, Kenneth W. Robinson, who served as UAW Region 1-D Director from 1955-1974. Ken Robinson died in 1976, shortly after these tapes were recorded. The recorded sessions provide a great insight into the UAW's member and family education program, which reached its height during the time period of the tapes. The earliest tapes pre-date the construction of the Black Lake Family Education Center; the final tapes were actually recorded at Black Lake itself. Very detailed sessions contain a description of bargaining strategy with Detroit automakers and regional agricultural implement manufacturers, as well as current political and social events such as Watergate, the Apollo space missions, and the Vietnam War. The recordings were made during UAW Region 1-D Fall and Summer School sessions in Benton Harbor, Saginaw, Grand Rapids, and Black Lake (Onoway, MI).
