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Julia Ruuttila Papers, 1878-2004

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Ruuttila, Julia, 1907-1991
Title
Julia Ruuttila Papers
Dates
1878-2004 (inclusive)
1935-1970 (bulk)
Quantity
5 linear ft. (6 document cases, 2 oversize folders)
Collection Number
Mss250
Summary
Papers of a prominent Northwest labor activist and journalist include correspondence, ephemera, legal papers, manuscripts, and published materials.
Repository
Oregon Historical Society Research Library
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR
97205
Telephone: 503-306-5240
Fax: 503-219-2040
libreference@ohs.org
Access Restrictions

The collection is open to the public.

Languages
English
Sponsor
Funding for encoding this finding aid was provided through a grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Historical Note

Julia Ruuttila (1907-1991) was born in Eugene, Oregon, to John and Ella Godman, who were labor and women's suffrage activists. She grew up in logging camps and on a farm, as well as in Eugene. After one short-lived early marriage to William Bowen, Julia attended the University of Oregon during the 1925-1926 school year and then married Maurice "Butch" Bertram and had her only child, Michael Jack, in 1928. After living in California, Oregon, Denver and Chicago, the Bertrams returned to Oregon in early 1929. Butch worked at the West Oregon lumber mill in Linnton, and Julia bought a typewriter. In 1943, Julia divorced Butch and married Ben Eaton, a seaman. That marriage lasted until 1946. She married Oscar Ruuttila in 1951, and they lived in Astoria, Oregon, until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1962. They had no children but raised Julia's grandson, Shane McDonald.

Julia's labor activism included organizing for the woodworkers' union, and she was instrumental in organizing women's auxiliaries of the woodworkers' and longshoremen's unions. In 1936, Julia created the Free Ray Becker Committee to obtain the release of the last IWW prisoner from the Centralia, Washington, tragedy of 1919. She became a lifelong activist on behalf of workers, for peace, and against racial prejudice and political repression, forming many committees and participating in many protests.

Although she wrote poetry, novels, and stories, Julia became best known for her journalism. She wrote for union papers, The Timber Worker (International Woodworkers of America) and the Dispatcher (International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union); the People's World; and for Federated Press, a news service. She wrote under several names: Julia Godman, Julia Bertram, Julia Eaton, and Julia Ruuttila, as well as pen names, Kathleen Cronin and Kathleen Ruuttila.

After World War II, Julia worked as a secretary for the State Public Welfare Commission before being dismissed for her writing and political activities. She then worked as a secretary for the Longshoremen's Union and fishermen's unions. In 1956, she was subpoenaed to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in Seattle, Washington, based in part on her participation in the Oregon Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born. She had been the subject of FBI surveillance since the early 1940s.

Julia continued her journalism and activism into old age and spent much of 1970 doing interviews and research on Louise Bryant for Virginia Gardner, who published Friend and Lover: The Life of Louise Bryant in 1982. Ill health forced Julia to move to the Marshall Union Manor, a union-operated retirement home, in 1976. Soon, she was editing the Manor's newsletter. Julia became a historical resource herself, frequently speaking to high school and college classes and organizations on labor, civil rights, and women's history. She spent the last years of her life with her grandson, Shane, and his family in Anchorage, Alaska, where she continued to participate in committees and protests.

NOTE: Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila by Sandy Polishuk provides a full account of Julia's life, much of it in her own words.

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Content Description

The Julia Ruuttila Papers consist of correspondence, ephemera, legal papers, interview transcripts and reports, manuscripts, published materials, and her FBI File, which was obtained by her biographer, Sandy Polishuk, under the Freedom of Information Act.

Correspondence, manuscripts, and published materials do not represent her full output but provide a good sampling of her career as a journalist and writer and of her wide-ranging activities on behalf of labor, civil rights, and peace movements protesting the Vietnam and Gulf wars. The collection also reflects her research contributions to a biography of Louise Bryant, Friend and Lover, by Virginia Gardner.

Much of the collection is original materials, but it also includes photocopied materials. A few of these were collected by Julia Ruuttila in the course of her work, but most of the photocopies, including family correspondence, were collected by Sandy Polishuk.

The collection includes Julia's own contributions to the history of labor, civil rights, and peace movements as reflected in her correspondence, manuscripts, and published materials. Although most of her published work is journalistic in nature, the collection reflects her love of writing poetry and includes an unpublished novel.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

The Oregon Historical Society is the owner of the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from the Research Library before any publication use. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from the copyright owners.

Preferred Citation

Julia Ruuttila Papers, Mss250, Oregon Historical Society Research Library

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

The collection is organized into the following series and subseries:

  • Series A: Correspondence, Ephemera and Legal Documents, 1907-2004
  • Subseries 1: Julia Ruuttila's Correspondence
  • Subseries 2: Correspondence and Papers of Family Members
  • Subseries 3: Ephemera and Legal Papers
  • Subseries 4: Sandy Polishuk's Correspondence
  • Series B: Activism and Organizations, circa 1920-1988
  • Series C: Manuscripts, circa 1935-1991
  • Series D: Published Materials and Writings by Others, 1925-1990
  • Subseries 1: Published Materials
  • Subseries 2: Writings by Others
  • Series E: Research for Biography of Louise Bryant, 1878-1987
  • Subseries 1: Virginia Gardner
  • Subseries 2: Julia Ruuttila
  • Subseries 3: California and Nevada Research
  • Series F: Julia Ruuttila's FBI File, 1941-1993

Custodial History

Julia Ruuttila made several donations of papers to the Oregon Historical Society between 1970 and 1990. Sandy Polishuk donated papers she had collected from or copied from Ruuttila and her family, along with oral history audio tapes and FBI files that she used in writing Julia's biography. Arthur Spencer, a former librarian at the Oregon Historical Society, added correspondence that he had conducted with Ruuttila in the course of her research for journalism and book projects.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Julia Ruuttila, 1970-1990 (Accession nos.11735, 11755, 11785, 18187, 18677, and 20152). Gift of Sandy Polishuk (Accession no. 25451).

Processing Note

Accessions arrived at the Oregon Historical Society in no particular order. Some items were transferred to vertical files and to the artificial Labor Collection (Mss1505) at the time of donation. To the extent that these could be identified, they were pulled from these locations and reunited with the collection. Previously, two accessions were given the designations: Mss250-1 and Mss250-2. These have been incorporated into the series arrangement of Mss250.

Separated Materials

Photographic materials were separated into the Julia Ruuttila Photographs Collection (Organized Lot 700). Ruuttila's material on the Free Ray Becker Committee was separated into Mss2003. A large group of oral histories conducted by Sandy Polishuk with Julia Ruuttila, her friends, co-workers, and family members were transferred to the Oral History Collection (interviews with Ruuttila, SR11030.1-25; interviews with others, SR11031-11060; ILWU convention, SR11061; farewell luncheon, SR11062). Transcripts prepared by Polishuk are available. Some books that accompanied the collection were transferred to the Research Library Book Collection and are cataloged individually.

Bibliography

Gardner, Virginia. Friend and Lover: The Life of Louise Bryant. New York: Horizon Press, 1982. Polishuk, Sandy. Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Civil rights--Oregon.
  • Labor movment--Oregon--History--20th century.
  • Labor unions and communism--United States.
  • Labor unions--Northwest, Pacific--History--20th century.
  • Peace movements--United States.
  • Women journalists--Northwest, Pacific.
  • Women radicals--Oregon.
  • Women in politics--Northwest, Pacific.
  • Women labor leaders--Northwest, Pacific.
  • Women labor union members--Oregon.
  • Women social reformers--Oregon.

Personal Names

  • Bertram, Maurice.
  • Bridges, Harry, 1901-
  • Bryant, Louise, 1885-1936
  • Gardner, Virginia.
  • Goodman, Irvin, 1897-1958
  • James, Cheryl D.
  • McDonald, Michael Jack.
  • Murnane, Francis J., 1914-1968
  • Polishuk, Sandy, 1940-
  • Ramp, Floyd Cleveland, 1882-1984
  • Ruuttila, Oscar.
  • Ruuttila, Julia, 1907-1991

Corporate Names

  • Industrial Workers of the World.
  • International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union.
  • International Woodworkers of America.
  • Oregon State Employees Association.
  • Oregon. State Public Welfare Commission.
  • United States. Congress. House. Un-American Activities Committee.
  • United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Form or Genre Terms

  • Correspondence.
  • Ephemera.
  • Manuscripts.
  • Novels.
  • Poetry.
  • Speeches.

Collection arranged and described by Sharon M. Howe, 2005
2006

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