Victor A. Olander papers, 1821-1949

Old Resource ID was VOlander

Victor A. Olander (1873-1949), statesman, orator, philosopher, and trade unionists rose from the rank of common sailor to become an eminent and energetic labor leader. In 1899, he began his career as a trade unionist when he joined the Seamen's Union. In 1901, he was chosen as a delegate for the Seaman's Union and in 1902 was elected second vice-president of the International Seamen's Union of America.

The working conditions that Olander experienced as a sailor prompted him to commence an intensive study of the United States Constitution, especially the Thirteenth Amendment, which he regarded as the greatest safeguard against infringement on personal freedom. The Seaman's Act of 1915 addressed some of Olander's concerns when it granted sailors the right to quit work and to leave their ships when anchored in a safe harbor.

While he was fulfilling his duties as an elected official of the International Seamen's Union, Olander was also assistant secretary in the Great Lakes Seamen's Union. When the Seamen's strike on the Great Lakes commenced in 1909, he was elected general secretary and chairman of the Great Lakes District Committee of the International Seamen's Union.

In 1914, Olander was elected secretary-treasurer of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, a position he held until his death in 1949. He was active in the labor movement in Illinois throughout the First World War and was appointed to the National War Labor Board in 1918. During the Depression, Olander was a Board member of the Joint Emergency Relief Fund of Cook County, which later became the Community Fund of Chicago.

In 1935, Olander resigned as a member of all Illinois State committees including the Illinois Housing Commission and the Illinois Citizenship Committee to protest the inaction of the Illinois legislature in passing an Occupational Diseases Act.

The collection consists of correspondence, notes, minutes, lists, clippings, reports, newsletters, speeches, bulletins, and statements pertaining to his trade union activities including correspondence with William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, and political leaders relative to the passage of legislation in the United States Congress and Illinois State Legislature to improve slave working conditions of sailors and laborers; studies of the United States Constitution, especially the Thirteenth Amendment, and his application of its principles to the sailors way of life, military conscription, and forced labor; reports and statements on the race riots of East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917, yellow dog contracts, wage stabilization, job freezing, national defense, newspaper guild strike, injunctions, declaratory judgments, Catholic Unions of Canada, and revolutionary conditions within Russia in 1917.

The collection also contains speeches on such topics as the basic freedoms of labor, employer-employee relations, slavery, the Taft-Hartley Act, and patriotism. His papers contain correspondence with the following individuals: Newton Baker, Wayland C. Brooks, Charles S. Deneen, William E. Dever, Louis K. Emerson, John Fitzpatrick, Samuel Gompers, Dwight H. Green, William Green, Henry Horner, Michael L. Igoe, Scott W. Lucas, John G. Oglesby, Allen Pond, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, R. M. Soderstrom, T.C. Spelling, Charles Wacker, John H. Walker, W.B. Wilson, Woodrow Wilson, and Matthew Woll.

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Victor A. Olander papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

• NamesOlander, Victor A., 1873-1949 -- Archives
• Subject
  • Chicago Political and Civic Life.
  • Labor movement.
  • Merchant mariners--Labor unions.
• Geographic CoverageUnited States.