Lucy Randolph Mason. Born in Alexandria in 1882, Mason was also related to George Mason and John Marshall. After a conventional education in Richmond, Mason became an expert in industrial matters and a firm public advocate of collective bargaining and labor rights. It was this that drew her to the attention of John L. Lewis, head of the newly formed, militant Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1937, prior to commencing a drive to bring industrial unions to the South, Lewis offered Mason the job of CIO public relations representative in the Southeast. Based in Atlanta, she would travel throughout the region, negotiating on behalf of organized labor in communities normally hostile to union activity. Lewis’s reasoning was that Mason’s impeccable southern lineage and her genteel demeanor would at least get her a hearing, and in this he was correct. For the rest of her working life she travelled throughout the Southeast, representing the CIO in a region increasingly unfriendly to organized labor. She played an important role in “Operation Dixie,” the CIO’s ill-conceived attempt to organize the textile South following World War II. On several occasions it was only her intervention that prevented outbreaks of violence against organizers.
Further Reading:
John A. Salmond, Miss Lucy of the CIO. The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason, 1882-1959 (1988)
This Vignette Provided By
John Salmond, Professor of American History Emeritus at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
