The George Johnston Collection consists of articles, notes, photos, news clippings and letters about his effort to establish a labor union at the Swift Manufacturing Company in Columbus in 1946-47. The collection also includes both a formal memoir and an informal one. It offers detailed accounts not only of his union organizing activities, but an unvarnished, humane, clear picture of what life was like in Columbus,Georgia among mill workers, the Afro-American community, and other groups not traditionally well-documented during a time of great social change. The collection, although small, provides a wealth of primary source information for researchers on labor history in the South. The personal narrative and the photographs illustrating it cover less than a year, from May 16, 1946 to March 15, 1947. 1940s-2009 1 box (.3 l.f.)