This collection of Manitowoc Company records is very fragmentary, with the bulk of the records being from the 1940s to 1976 and primarily financial records. The majority are concerned with the shipbuilding aspect of the company. One reel of microfilmed minutes produced at the Historical Society in 1963 contains Board of Directors' Minutes (3 volumes) and Shareholders' Minutes (1 volume) which are comprehensive for the period 1920-1951. The larger paper portion and microfilm produced by the Manitowoc Company contains more scattered documentation.
The paper portion of the Manitowoc Company records are arranged in twenty-three series. Twenty of the series reflect the various company name changes, subsidiaries, and divisions and are arranged alphabetically. Within these series, the following sub-series may exist: Administrative records, employee records, insurance records, physical plant records, production records, and financial records. The last-named sub-series constitutes the bulk of the collection. Administrative records, sometimes including pre-1920 minutes, are sparse and exist only for the earliest years. Of particular note are the sub-series production records in the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company and Manitowoc Shipbuilding Corporation series which document submarine production for the government during World War II. Also, the series Manitowoc Homebuilders Association, Riverview Realty Company, and Sterling Realty Company document Manitowoc Company's involvement in constructing employee housing.
The three remaining series of the paper portion are historical records, patents and back-up papers, and miscellaneous. Included in the historical records series are microfilm worksheets prepared by Manitowoc Company as an in-house control for the microfilm portion of the collection which they produced. The patents and back-up papers are arranged alphabetically by name of patented item and primarily include printed materials. The miscellaneous series contains materials on the Chicago Roosevelt Steamship Company.
The remainder of the collection consists of 67 reels of microfilm made from the original negative held by Manitowoc Company. The microfilm is of very poor quality and is virtually illegible. For example, the film of a general ledger may have black blotches on the column of dollar figures or in other instances the reduction ratio makes the printed matter too small for reading. A small percentage of the microfilm contents are duplicates of materials in the manuscript portion of the collection.
The microfilm contents list reflects the arrangement of the records as they appear on the film. This list includes everything on each reel of film regardless of archival value.
The parenthetical numbers in the contents list are records management control numbers retained for the company's own use.
