The Midwest Migrant Farm Worker collection largely consists of paper records, objects, monographs, and photographs collected by Dave Cormier, both a faculty member at Indiana University Kokomo and an active organizer in the farm labor movement. He helped to organize and worked with the Great Boycott Committee, later known as the Farm Labor Aid Committee, from 1968 to 1974. Other organizers, including Ricardo Parra and Jose Juarez from St. Joseph County, contributed personal papers.
The collection is organized into thirteen series, listed above and detailed further in the following container list. Audiovisual materials and monographs are discoverable in IUCAT, Indiana University Library's catalog, and are stored in the Special Collections Room. Photographs are available in print and have also been digitized to be made available online.
As described by Cormier, many of the materials in the collection "depict the confrontative propaganda and protest methods" used in farm worker organizing. The correspondence, research files, and news clippings are complemented by the objects in the collection, notably including buttons, jewelry, and hand-painted signs.
Physical Description:
6 Linear Feet and 7.3 Gigabytes
Creator
Cormier, David R.
Abstract Or Scope
This collection is comprised of paper records, objects, photographs, and research files donated by Dave Cormier, assistant coordinator of Labor Studies, and other people active in organizing for farm workers. As described by Cormier, "the primary focus is on materials from the first grape and lettuce boycotts, the volunteer boycott support committees which were set up in northern and central Indiana, the activity with migrant workers during that period here in the Midwest, and related information from the UFW from that period."