The Fairchild Papers relate mainly to his public life as a state senator, gubernatorial candidate, associate justice, and chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The collection includes correspondence, financial data, legislative and judicial documents, and miscellaneous materials, which span the years 1898 to 1965. The bulk of the material dates from 1910 to 1946, the period when Fairchild served as state senator and as a justice of the Supreme Court.
The collection is arranged in five categories: Correspondence, Financial, Legislative and Judicial, Miscellaneous Materials, and Speeches and Writings.
Correspondence is divided into incoming, outgoing, and miscellaneous undated letters. The major part of the correspondence deals with personal and social aspects of his public career, especially his election campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Each section of correspondence has been arranged chronologically. The one Financial document is a personal account ledger (circa 1915). The Legislative and Judicial material is arranged alphabetically by subject. Copies of bills pertaining to the work of Senator Fairchild are included as are minutes of the State Board of Public Affairs (1916). Several documents pertaining to the actions of the Supreme Court as well as miscellaneous materials relevant to the Court are present. One folder in the collection has been devoted to documents concerning former Chief Justice Marvin B. Rosenberry.
The Writings and Speeches category contains a considerable number of speeches by Fairchild. The speeches have been arranged by topic where possible. His single folder of writings includes an article for the Law Library Journal (1942).
Separated from the collection were over one thousand clippings covering the career of Fairchild. The clippings, all from Wisconsin newspapers, were collected by three news clipping services: Meyers News Service Company of Milwaukee, WPA Clipping Bureau, and the Wisconsin Clipping Bureau. The majority were taken from the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Milwaukee Journal, the Wisconsin State Journal, and The Capital Times. Three minor publications from Milwaukee, the News, the Leader, and the Herald were also represented. The clippings covered distinct periods in Fairchild's career: 150 related to his early career (1908-1910); 150 to his appointment to the Supreme Court in April 1930; and over 700 to his 1936 and 1946 campaigns for justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. All of the clippings were duplicates of articles that are available on the newspaper microfilm held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
