What happens when somebody tells you, “The union has always taken this position,” or “That goes all the way back to the 1970 strike”? In the first episode of Footnotes, the Minion from the Old Dominion follows the trail to the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University, home of the official historical archives of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

We look at how the Reuther became one of North America’s major labor archives, how archival research actually works, and what NALC members can find inside its collections; presidential papers, City Delivery records, grievance and arbitration material, convention records, photographs, historic artifacts, and much more. Along the way, we talk finding aids, boxes and folders, what can be researched from home, what requires a trip to Detroit, and why primary sources still need to be ...