Harold Cammer Papers

Harold I. Cammer (1909-1995) was a lawyer who championed the rights of workers, labor unions, accused Communists and victims of racial bigotry. Over the course of his 40-year career, Cammer numbered among his clients major organizations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations; the Joint Board, Fur, Leather & Machine Workers Union; the brewery workers' union, New York teachers' union, and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters. During the widespread Communist hunts of the 1950's, he defended union officers and teachers, especially in connection with their appearances before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and its counterparts in New York State.

Cammer was also a founder and active member of the National Lawyers Guild, a nationwide organization noted for its concern with civil rights. He volunteered his legal services in the civil rights movement in the South in the 1960's. He was co-lead counsel in the successful defense of more than 700 students arrested during the sit-in at Columbia University in 1968 and, with his son, Robert, wrote a legal analysis of the Vietnam War.

Mr. Cammer, who was born to Russian immigrant parents in Manhattan in 1909, graduated from City College in 1929 and was admitted on a full scholarship to Harvard Law School. Except for military service during World War II, he spent his career practicing law. His firm, Pressman, Witt & Cammer, evolved into Cammer & Shapiro, a Manhattan firm specializing in labor law, where he worked until he retired.

Source: "Harold Cammer, 86, Champion of Labor And Rights Lawyer," Lawrence van Gelder. New York edition. October 25, 1995