The Goldmann History Scholarship

              The Goldaann History Scholarship
The Goldmann History Scholarship was established at Pasadena City
College in 1992 by William E. Goldmann, son of William and Lillie
May Elliott Goldmann, following the death of his father in late
1991.
William Goldmann was born in Yale, Kansas in 1906, migrated to
Dawson, New Mexico where he met Lillie May Elliott, born in
Dawson in 1909. While he was still in his middle teens William
went to work as a coal miner, and joined by his father, Augustus,
became an organizer in the newly formed United Mine Workers Union
under the great John L. Lewis. William and Lillie married in
1927 and their first son, William Elliott, was born in Dawson in
1928.
William's activity as a union organizer at the Phelps-Dodge coal
mines drew the attention of company security forces who "ran the
Goldmanns out of town", literally dumping the family possessions
in the nearby Diablo Flats. The Goldmanns migrated to Colorado
and Utah where William found work in the mines. Finally arriving
in California during the great depression, both William and
Lillie worked at the Cudahay Packing Plant in Los Angeles where
they were eventually fired for their pro-union activity.
William found work at Chrysler Motors in Maywood, Ca., in 1934
and began to organize the assembly plant workers there. Union
activity increased with the passage of the Wagner Act but William
and other organizers were arrested for on-site organizing. In a
test case for the Wagner Act, the unionists were charged by
District Attorney Buron Fitts with numerous felonies (conspiracy,
fraud, intimidation). Defended by a then obscure ACLU lawyer, Al
Wirin, a hung jury led to a second trial where acquittal was
gained for the labor leaders. (Walt Rosnick, one of the orginal
group is still alive, 12March1992). Eventually the bailiff was
convicted for jury tampering.
William was then asked to serve on the International Staff of the
United Auto Workers under Walter Reuther where he worked
throughout World War II and into the late sixties. During this
time he helped organize farm workers in California (he was
attacked by guard dogs on more than one occasion) and he quite
literally forced UAW locals in the south to promote blacks on the
basis of seniority, thus helping to break the "color bar" of
southern labor. He organized office workers, and fought for equal
pay for equal work regardless of gender.
His most trying period was in the late forties and early fifties
he and the Reuthers (Walter, Victor, Roy) and most of the UAW
leadership engaged in a dramatic struggle against a strong and
well organized communist takeover of the UAW. The UAW leadership,
like William , were mostly social democrats of the old European
mold and won that fight but were themselves the target of an
intense attack from the McCarthyites. Walter and Victor were shot
and wounded (Walter was left with a disabled right arm and Victor