Background
James Paul Mitchell was born on November 12, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was the son of Peter J. Mitchell, an editor of trade-union journals, and Anna C. Driscoll, an early member of the Retail Clerks Union.
James Paul Mitchell was born on November 12, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was the son of Peter J. Mitchell, an editor of trade-union journals, and Anna C. Driscoll, an early member of the Retail Clerks Union.
Mitchell attended St. Patrick's School and Battin High School in Elizabeth.
After his graduation in 1917, he became a clerk in the butter and egg store where he had worked since the age of twelve, following the death of his father. Mitchell became a small-scale entrepreneur in 1919 when he opened a grocerystore, followed by a second one in 1921. Both of his stores failed in the business recession of 1923. For the following eighteen years he worked to pay off all his creditors, holding a series of jobs including lumber salesman, truck driver, and door-to-door coal salesman. In 1929, Mitchell embarked on a career in industrial relations and personnel administration with the Western Electric Company in Kearny, New Jersey; having joined the firm in 1926 as an expediter, he gravitated into the personnel department. From 1932 to 1936, he served as Emergency Relief Administration director in Union County, New Jersey. He returned to Western Electric in 1936 as supervisor of training. In 1938, he became director of the industrial relations department of the New York City Works Progress Administration (WPA). Mitchell's work with the WPA introduced him to Colonel Brehon Somervell, director of the WPA in New York City. In 1940, Somervell, then chief of the Construction Division of the Army Quartermaster Corps, brought Mitchell to Washington, D. C. , to handle labor relations for the army's vast construction program. After the Army Service Forces were formed, Mitchell served as director of its Industrial Personnel Division (1942 - 1945), with responsibility for personnel management of approximately 1 million civilian employees of the army and for overseeing labor-management relations in all the army's construction work. For this work, he received the Exceptional Service Award in 1944.
He also served on the National Building Trades Stabilization Board from 1941 to 1945, and in 1948 was a member of the personnel advisory board of the Hoover Commission on the Reorganization of the Executive Branch. Following the war Mitchell returned to private industry as director of personnel and industrial relations at R. H. Macy and Company (1945 - 1947) and as vice-president in charge of labor relations and operations at Bloomingdale Brothers (1947 - 1953). He served simultaneously as chairman of the employee relations committee of the National Retail Dry Goods Association, as a member of the executive committee of the National Civil Service League, and as chairman of the executive committee of the Retail Labor Standards Association of New York. He was also a member of the Personnel Advisory Board of the Hoover Commission in 1948. Although a Democrat, Mitchell supported Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 election and became a Republican soon afterward. In May 1953, PresidentDwight Eisenhower appointed Mitchell assistant secretary of the army for manpower and reserve forces affairs. Mitchell accepted the position of secretary of labor on October 8, 1953, following the resignation of Martin Durkin, who had served only eight months in office. He immediately changed the administrative structure and techniques of the department so as to increase its efficiency in line with recommendations made by the Hoover Commission. He strengthened and expanded programs that directed national attention to manpower problems of the technological revolution and provided help to special groups, such as older workers and migrant farm workers. He served as cochairman of the President's Committee on Government Contracts (Vice-President Richard M. Nixon was chairman), which provided leadership in the government's program to eliminate discrimination in employment. He chaired the President's Commission on Migratory Labor. The causes of migrant workers and equal employment opportunity were among his major concerns.
Under Mitchell, the Department of Labor maintained excellent relations with both organized labor and management. The AFL-CIO gave Mitchell a testimonial dinner in 1960, just before his leaving office. Some liberal Republicans and labor leaders made an abortive attempt to secure him the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 1960. After leaving the Labor Department, Mitchell served as chairman of the Railroad Retirement Board and ran unsuccessfully for governor of New Jersey in 1961. Following his defeat, he accepted a position as a consultant and director of industrial relations of the Crown Zellerbach Corporation, moving to vice-president for industrial relations and senior vice-president for corporate relations in 1962. Mitchell died of heart failure while on business in New York City.
Mitchell fought against heavy opposition in order to better the lives of migrant workers.
Quotes from others about the person
Journalist and editor Harry Hamilton called Mitchell the "social conscience of the Republican party, " and he was widely regarded as a liberalizing influence in the Eisenhower administration.
"The burden of a Secretary of Labor is a heavy one, yet he bore it always with a warm regard for all of the people who served him, and whom he served. His contribution to his nation was an enduring one, both in what he accomplished and in the way he accomplished it. " - Arthur Goldberg
On January 22, 1923, he married Isabelle Nulton; they had one daughter.