The collection reflects significantly only part of the career of Betty Gannett: her work as a theoretician, teacher, and political exponent of the CP. The bulk of it, relating directly to these functions, includes lectures and papers, notes, course outlines, bibliographies, bulletins, and printed material which Gannett wrote for the State Organization-Education Commission of the California CP. Other fragmentary material haphazardly illustrates isolated events in her life, the more human side of radical agitation, and the measures taken by the federal government to repress the CP. Included in this material are letters of condolence upon her death, work she edited, eulogies she wrote, papers re her experiences in prison, personal correspondence, and legal papers, some of which concern the attempt to deport her. Throughout the collection Gannett's husband, Jim Tormey, has added short explanatory notes. These are identified by his name or initials. The collection is arranged as an alphabetical subject file. Within the subject divisions, the arrangement is chronological or topical.
The section “lectures and papers” is a very broad category of written records comprising the largest portion of the collection. There are only minor differences in structure between her oral presentations and her more formal papers. The lectures contain complete sentences, distinct paragraphs, and a thorough organization, allowing them to be grouped with the more formal papers in the collection. The only obvious visual difference is that her oral presentations were written with a wide margin on each page. Her lectures, dating from the mid-1930's to shortly before her death, were generally political or educational in purpose and relate to a wide variety of subjects, including the CP; the role of economics in society; history, philosophy; and scientific socialism. Those which could be dated include mainly political lectures; these have been arranged chronologically. The others, which include most of the educational lectures, are arranged topically. Gannett's notes bear a close functional resemblance to her lectures but do not contain their organization unity. Her notes are of two kinds: direct quotations or paraphrases from authorities, other non-Marxists; and her own unorganized thoughts. They are also arranged in both chronological and topical order. Often individual notes that are grouped together have no apparent unity, but they have been retained in the order Gannett left them.
The collection also contains a variety of material relevant to the educational work of Gannett apart from her lectures and notes. Her course outlines and bibliographies relate to courses that she taught from time to time, reflecting their subject matter and her teaching methods. Bulletins from the New York School for Marxist Studies do not directly involve her work, although Gannett frequently taught there, and they indicate some of the subjects that she offered. Her San Francisco Marxist School lectures, while differing little from her other educational lectures, are grouped to illustrate a definite stage in her career. The publications that she prepared for the State Organization-Education Commission of the California CP preserve some of her early educational and organizational work.
Other miscellaneous facets of Gannett's life are sparsely recorded in the collection. Her various legal problems -- attempts to deport her, her Smith Act trial, and her prison term -- are represented in records of litigation, correspondence, clippings, and printed material. There are only a few of the eulogies that she gave for others and a few samples of her editing of the work of her associates. The small amount of personal correspondence obviously is only a fraction of the total which must have existed. The collection also has some fragmented biographical information, primarily contained in obituaries written at her death, as well as many letters of condolence to her husband. The printed material, concerning unrelated activities of the CP, was gathered from throughout the collection prior to processing and reflects no systematic design to preserve such material.
The papers in the collection are available both in original form and on microfilm. The tape records Gannett's funeral.
