Hobby, Wilbur 1925-

Oral history interview with Wilbur Hobby, March 13, 1975 interview E-0006, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) by Wilbur Hobby ( Book )
2 editions published in 2007 in English and held by 14 libraries worldwide
Wilbur Hobby was born in Durham, North Carolina, in 1925. In the early 1930s, Hobby's father, a bricklayer, deserted his mother, leaving her to raise five sons on her own. Hobby describes growing up impoverished in the Edgemont section of Durham, where most of his friends had parents who worked in the tobacco or textile mills. Hobby remained in school through the ninth grade only, dropping out after spending a summer in Ohio working as a bat boy for the Durham Bulls. Shortly after leaving school, Hobby's mother signed a waiver for him to join the Navy at the age of seventeen, and he served in the South Pacific during World War II. He returned to Durham following the war and worked briefly with his father as a bricklayer before becoming employed by the American Tobacco Company. During these years, Hobby married. Although he argues that he had little awareness of the labor movement, with only foggy memories of the 1934 general strike as it occurred in Durham, Hobby explains how he became increasingly involved in labor politics during the late 1940s. Joining the union at the American Tobacco Company in 1946, he soon became actively involved and was eventually elected president of the night shift workers. From there, Hobby became an active participant in the Voters for Better Government in Durham, a coalition of laborers, African Americans, and liberal intellectuals from Duke University. Hobby describes how they became a formidable force in local politics during the late 1940s and 1950s. In addition, Hobby discusses his involvement with other labor organizations, such as Labor's League for Political Education (LLPE) and the Committee for Public Education (COPE). In 1958/1959, Hobby worked briefly for the textile unions in Florida and Georgia after he was fired from the American Tobacco Company. Because of his work with both tobacco and textile unions and the Voters for Better Government, Hobby had become well known enough in the movement to become elected as director of COPE in 1959--a position he held until 1969.

Hobby and the issues, 1972 by Wilbur Hobby ( Book )
2 editions published in 1972 in English and held by 1 library worldwide

Organized labor faces the 1980's by Wilbur Hobby ( Book )
1 edition published in 1980 in English and held by 1 library worldwide

Wilbur Hobby : commercials, 1972 by Wilbur Hobby ( )
1 edition published in 1972 in English and held by 1 library worldwide
Commercials used during Hobby's campaign for the 1972 gubernatorial election in North Carolina, Democratic party.

Papers, 1956-1968 by Wilbur Hobby ( )
in English and held by 1 library worldwide
Papers of Hobby while he served as southeast area director of the Committee on Political Education of the AFL-CIO. The collection also includes material from Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina on voting records, issue positions, activities of congressmen and other political officials, elections statistics, reports of state labor conferences, memoranda on unionization in various industries, reports of the state directors of the Committee on Political Education, and state labor publications.