Finding Aids

The Employee Relations Department of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company became a formal entity in 1951, but each industrial department was responsible for its own recruitment and personnel practices. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company is a chemical company more commonly referred to as the DuPont company. The records include reports, tables of hourly wages for production workers, benefits for employees, and personnel record cards for early twentieth century employees.

Virgil Baldwin Day (1915-2003) was a leading figure in American industrial relations from the 1950’s through the end of the 1970’s. Day worked for the General Electric Company from 1947 to 1973 rising to Vice-President of Relations Services in 1961. He was heavily involved in the company's negotiations with labor unions during the “Boulwarism” era at General Electric, and he was instrumental in the company's communications with its workforce. Day also served on a number of national boards and committees that were concerned with labor matters including an appointment to president Richard Nixon’s federal Pay Board in 1971. Day’s high-profile roles made him an in-demand lecturer on topics such as collective bargaining, equal opportunity employment, personnel management, and wage stabilization. The Virgil B. Day papers include correspondence, memos, reports, and clippings that document Day's career at General Electric and his work for the boards and committees he served. The collection also includes many of Day’s speeches which provide insight into the labor issues of his time.