AFL-CIO Poster

 

 

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Solidarity Works poster                                    by artist Jerry W. McDaniel, 1991                                      Special Run Artist signed copy of Official AFL-CIO poster   for 1991 Labor March on Washington.

Art work in the permanent collection of:

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
(You can see a picture of it. It is one of the three posters by Jerry W. McDaniel in the permanent collection of the V&A Museum.)
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1396701/solidarity-works-poster-mcdaniel-jerry-w/

The University of Missouri-St. Louis Art Collection in “The Bruce & Barbara Feldacker Labor Art Collection” (Solidarity works (155/200)., p. 18 of the list;  th item from top, no. 65, acquired on 9/1/1991.

https://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/files/pdfs/feldacker-artwork-list-2013.pdf
(just listed; no picture)

AFL-CIO (The American Federation of Labor and  Congress of Industrial OrganizationsWashington, D.C., USA

CSPG (Center for the Study of Political Graphics),Culver City, California, USA

Bureau of Labor Education Archive, Fogler Library, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA

 Frostburg State University Special Collections, Frostburg, Maryland, USA

STORY OF THE POSTER

I was commissioned by AFL-CIO to design and illustrate the official poster “Solidarity Day ’91” for the August 31st 1991 March on Washington, DC.
 
I was happy to have been chosen for that commission. I think, my grandfather on my mother side, George Thompson, would be proud of this achievement. Growing up in Southern Ohio I was told that George, a coal miner at the Racoon Mines, and a member of the United Mine Workers of America, was a friend of John L Lewis, the leader of organized labor who served as president of the UMW from 1920 to 1960.

I know that to commemorate the ’91 March on Washington, DC, AFL-CIO re-produced numerous prints of my poster and distributed them. A group of Union members and their kids painted a large copy of the poster, about 40ft x 30ft and a film while they were painting was produced. I was not aware of this banner with my poster design. A friend of mine, Lou Stoller, the then and long-time President of the Union (UCE) at FIT/State University of New York, where I was a professor, told me that he saw the banner with my poster design at one of the AFL-CIO events. FIT had a very strong union.  Later it was brought to my attention that this huge banner was hung during the August 31 1991 event between two buildings in Washington, which I assume were the Union Offices. I was told the original poster was on a wall of the then AFL-CIO President’s Office, Lane Kirkland.

 

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