Charles Newell was Business Agent of United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America [UE] Local 601 (Westinghouse Electric Corporation, East Pittsburgh) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was born in Ireland c. 1906. After immigrating to America, he attended and was graduated from the University of Washington. He also trained and worked as a machinist and toolmaker.
Newell's connection with the UE went back to the union's earliest days. He was an organizer for UE in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1937, and was assigned to East Pittsburgh in the late 1930s. As part of the UE National Westinghouse Conference Board, he served on the negotiating committee which brought about wage increases in 1940 for UE members in the Westinghouse chain.
In the early 1940s, Charles Newell came under fire from critics of the union, in particular from Father Charles Owen Rice, a Catholic labor priest in Pittsburgh, and James McDowell, editor of the Wilkinsburg Gazette, both of whom accused Newell of communist connections as part of an effort to change the electrical workers union's leadership.
In the 1940's Newell married Ruth Allen, a UE organizer working in Western Pennsylvania. Their daughter, Amy Newell, later joined the union staff and rose to become General Secretary-Treasurer of UE, possibly the only woman up to that time to head a major American industrial union. Charles Newell continued on staff with the UE until the mid-1950s when he retired and moved with his family to California.
The collection contains copies of correspondence, news clippings, drafts and published reports and articles, flyers, voting cards, and other materials, arranged chronologically and according to subject matter in 11 folders. The perceived interference of Catholic Church leaders in the Pittsburgh labor movement under the guise of anticommunism was Newell's chief focus and bone of contention in compiling these materials. From his position as Business Agent of UE Local 601, Newell had opposed the Church's involvement in union politics, the more so as the communist label had been used against him.
Folders 1-3 primarily reflect the factional conflicts within UE Local 601, between 1940 and 1942. Folders 4-6 and 8 deal with the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, who Newell viewed as fomenting a schism within the United Electrical Workers Union. Folder 7 focuses on a struggle between rightwing and leftwing unionists within Aluminum Workers Local No. 2 in New Kensington, 1947-1950. Folder 9 contains an interesting postmortem on the 1950 East Pittsburgh Westinghouse election which was lost by the UE largely over the communist issue. Folder 10 contains materials relative to accusations against Newell in the mid-1950s, when he and other UE leaders were summoned before the Massachusetts Commission on Communism and Subversive Activities.
No restrictions.
Gift of Amy Newell (Charles' daughter)in 1997.
Charles Newell Papers, 1940-1959, AIS.2005.07, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Charles Newell Papers, 1940-1959, AIS.2005.07, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Papers of Charles Newell, 1940-1959, UE 2005:07, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
This collection was processed by David Rosenberg with assistance from Jaimie George in 2004.
Permission for publication is given on behalf of the University of Pittsburgh as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Papers of Margaret Darin Stasik, 1936-1945, AIS.1973.32, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Papers of Charles Owen Rice, 1935-1998, AIS.1976.11, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Papers of Thomas J. Quinn, 1947-1992, AIS.1973.09, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Electrical Workers Oral History Project, AIS.1991.15, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
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