The WSCC records cover the years 1905-1975, but concentrate on the period 1937-1973. The collection is divided into three major series: General Correspondence and Subject File; District Council File; and Local Union File.
Arrangement of the GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE AND SUBJECT FILE is alphabetical. It contains the Council's correspondence with the Carpenters and Joiners international office, the state AFL-CIO, and individual employers throughout the state; reports of the council president and other officials; scholarship contest files; executive committee minutes; a few copies of WSCC constitutions and convention proceedings; photographs and a poster; and miscellaneous records. Perhaps most significant are the reports filed regularly by the presidents and other Council officials. These are filed under the heading “WSCC Monthly Reports” or the name of the individual. They generally concern organizing activities, enforcing contract provisions, and policing of job sites to insure the use of union labor. Also important is the correspondence with individual employers, which invariably concerns attempts to organize the particular firms, and documents both union tactics and the means adopted by employers to prevent unionization.
There are also photographs of organization officials and a poster from a collective bargaining election between the AFL and the CIO at the Vulcan Corporation.
The DISTRICT COUNCIL FILE is organized alphabetically by district council name and concerns the relations between the councils and the WSCC. For each council files are further subdivided into the following categories: agreements, correspondence, minutes, and, in one case, financial records. The districts most extensively covered are Fox River Valley, Chippewa and Red Cedar Valley, Milwaukee, and Wisconsin River Valley.
The LOCAL UNION FILE contains records of transactions between the State Council and the locals. Included also are original records of some defunct locals. Emphasized in this series are negotiations and conflicts between locals and employers. Files are arranged by local number and subdivided into agreements, correspondence, minutes, and financial records. Locals most thoroughly documented are 68, Menomonie; 394, Prairie du Chien; 1146, Green Bay; 1521, Algoma; 1733, Marshfield; 1900, Kewaunee; and 2890, New London.
