2011 Joseph Jacobs Labor Scholarship call for applicants
The Joseph Jacobs Labor Scholarship Fund was established to honor Joseph Jacobs, a long-time labor attorney who represented unions in Georgia. The Scholarship Fund was established in 1983 by the Organized Labor and Workmen’s Circle Awards Committee and the North Georgia Building and Construction Trades Council.
One scholarship is awarded annually in the amount of $1,000.
The scholarship recipient must be admitted to or enrolled in Georgia State University and be a student in good standing. S/he must also be a member of a Georgia AFL-CIO affiliate labor organization or the spouse, child, or grandchild of a member.
Click here for more information about the scholarship and instructions on how to apply.
The deadline for applications is June 15, 2011.
Joseph Jacobs, born in 1908, was a graduate of the Atlanta Law School. He served as a labor lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, and the southern United States for many years. He also served as a union organizer during the 1934 Textile Strike and the 1936 Lakewood-General Motors Strike.
Jacobs worked as a Southern Regional Director for the United Textile Workers of America in the southeast and worked with many other local unions as their attorney. He served as an officer and member of the Workmen’s Circle for over fifty years. In fact, he would become the first recipient of the Organized Labor and Workmen’s Circle Award Banquet award in 1969.
Jacobs served as president of the Atlanta Orchid Society and was involved in the city planning of Sandy Spring and its surrounding area during the 1970s. Jacobs served locally in the Georgia Democratic Party for many years. He was elected three times to the Democratic National Convention and as chairman of the Fulton county Democratic Party. He also was an active member of the Georgia Humanities Council and was one of the key founders of the Southern Labor Archives at Georgia State University. Mr. Jacobs passed away in 1998.
The Joseph Jacobs Papers are held in the University Library’s Southern Labor Archives, as are the records of his law firm, Jacobs and Langford.
For more information about the Jacobs Scholarship or his collections, please contact Traci Drummond, archivist for the Southern Labor Archives, at 404.413.2880 or at archives@gsu.edu.