July 2009Archie Green, Champion of Labor LoreBy Halley CornellArchie Green (June 29, 1917 - March 22, 2009) was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father, who would influence Green’s interest in unionism and laborlore, fled to Canada with his wife from czarist Russia in 1905. The family moved to California in 1922. Archie received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1939. He obtained a Ph. D in folklore in 1968, specializing in the music, folklore, and vernacular of the working culture. His education in such matters began long before he received his degree, however. He served in the U.S. Navy, and as a Journeyman Shipwright on San Francisco’s central waterfront. He was a life-long member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, wrote definitive studies of worker slang and coal miner music, and became known as the country’s leading laborlore conservationist. During the early 1970s, Green worked with the U.S. Congress to win support for the American Folklife Preservation Act of 1976. The Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, which preserves and presents work like Green’s, is a result of this effort. Green is well known for his work on early hillbilly music recordings, and for his efforts to collect and publish the lyrics of almost 200 labor movement songs originally printed between 1909 and 1973 in the Industrial Workers of the World’s Little Red Songbooks. Green, who also served as secretary of San Francisco’s Fund for Labor and Culture History, a nonprofit that supports local laborlore efforts, received the Living Legend award from the Library of Congress in 2007. His work on the Copra Crane restoration project is among his many efforts to preserve historic labor landmarks and other vestiges of the sometimes overlooked culture of everyday workers. |
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