Workers in the printing trade were among the first in the nation to organize trade unions. After several attempts to create a national body, representatives of local journeyman printers unions from 14 cities (including Indianapolis) met in Cincinnati on May 3, 1852, and organized the National Typographical Union. Through a random drawing, the Indianapolis local became Typographical Union No. 1.
Following the admittance of Canadian locals in 1869-1870, the union became the International Typographical Union (ITU). Although struggling through its formative years, Typographical Union No. 1 gradually built strength. It struck the for a wage increase in 1863 but lost when the paper replaced union employees with nonunion workers.
Samuel L. Leffingwell, head of the local around 1880 and member of the , led the union as a sponsoring member of the Indianapolis Trades Assembly (1880; after 1883, the Indianapolis Central Labor Union) and the (1885). Leffingwell also represented the ITU at a conference in Pittsburgh in November 1881, which established the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor (1886). In 1888, the ITU, seeking a more central location, moved its national headquarters from New York City to Indianapolis where it published its national organ, the , and the local’s paper, .
The ITU originally represented many areas of the printing trade. Increased craft consciousness and resentment against a group of compositors who dominated the ITU produced a splintering of the membership in the early 1900s. By 1910, the ITU was primarily a craft union of typesetters. The union moved its offices to the former Van Camp mansion at 2820 North Meridian Street in 1925. The ITU held its 72nd national convention in Indianapolis (August 8-13, 1927), marking the 75th year of the union’s existence.
The ITU left Indianapolis in 1961-1962, relocating to Colorado Springs. Although the ITU endeavored to embrace technological change, the computerization of the printing trades in the last decades of the 20th century weakened it. In December 1986, members of the ITU merged with the Communication Workers of America.
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