The Eisenscher gallery showcases over 130 photos taken by Edmund Eisenscher (1909-1995), photographer for the “Wisconsin CIO News.” Today only about 11 percent of American workers belong to a union. But when Eisenscher was working, more than a third of working Americans were union members. Milwaukee was one of the nation’s leading manufacturing centers and, after four decades of socialist government, one of its strongest union communities, too. Residents considered labor unions a basic part of the social fabric like schools and churches. Eisenscher’s images document the role unions played in people’s lives during this vanished era.
His images range in time from 1938-1956, but the majority date from 1946-1948 when he was a photographer for “Wisconsin CIO News.” The nation was experiencing sharp price increases at the time and workers’ demands for raises to keep up with inflation met stiff opposition. The passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 outlawed or restricted m