Guide to manuscripts on Labour Movement & Radical Politics
The Fryer Library's manuscript collections document the industrial and political labour movement in Queensland from the nineteenth century onwards. They include records of unions of meatworkers, building workers, engine drivers, electricians and transport workers, among others. The centrepiece is the vast Trades and Labor Council collection, comprising over 600 boxes of material documenting Queensland's peak union body and its predecessors from the 1890s to the 1980s. These institutional records are complemented by material from rank and file activists such as Warren Bowden, Grahame Garner, Jean O'Connel and Marie McFarlane. Political labour is well represented in research collections from labour stalwarts Denis Murphy and Joe Harris, and in a range of collections relating to the Communist and Labor parties.
The collections documenting radical politics in Brisbane read something like a Who's Who of protest movements, particularly those of the 1960s and 1970s. There are papers from Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Dan O'Neill, Bruce Dickson, Mitch Thompson, Brian Laver, Greg Weir, and others, as well as records from groups such as the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties and the Self Management Group.
There is also a vast body of political ephemera comprising the leaflets, handouts and posters that were a characteristic form of documentation of the industrial and protest movements of the time. All the most significant radical groups and campaigns are represented. These are not listed here but can be searched by the library's online catalogue.
