The collection consists of official records of the state union, including five volumes of the proceedings of annual state conventions, namely those at Chicago, December 14-16, 1916; Green Bay, December 4-6, 1917; Wausau, December 11-14, 1917; Madison, December 18-22, 1919; and Milwaukee, November 30-December 3, 1920. One box of material consists of the minutes of meetings of the executive committee of the Wisconsin Union, December 8, 1919 to August 15, 1934, and a second box comprises a number of financial reports of the organization for the years 1921 to 1934 (not complete), the articles of organization of the Wisconsin Equity Dairy Marketing Association, 1920, and articles of organization and by-laws of the Equity Dairymen's Cooperative Association, 1921. There is also a copy of the charter of Dane County Union No. 33, 1905, and of Wisconsin Union No. 1, 1914, and a folder of credentials and tables of membership by counties for the Chetek convention in 1933.
The proceedings are very full for the conventions to which they relate, running from 400 to 700 typewritten pages, and include in the text of the proceedings the addresses given by guest speakers. There is much information concerning the farmer viewpoint and at times the viewpoints of other groups such as labor, farm problems (especially the matter of profitably marketing products), cooperative marketing methods, advantages of organization, policies, business affairs, organization finances, membership, cooperative purchasing, agricultural education, personalities connected with the agricultural cooperative movement, and dissensions within the organization. Among the names of guest speakers are those of Daniel W. Hoan, Milwaukee mayor, Philip Grau, secretary of the Milwaukee chamber of commerce, C.P. Norgard, state commissioner of agriculture, Frank L. Glynn, secretary of the state board of vocational education, Edward Nordman, director of the state marketing commission, L.P. Johnson, former secretary of the state organization of North Dakota, C[harles] A. Lyman of the National Board of Farm Organizations, John A. McSperran, master of the Grange of Pennsylvania, and Henry Ohl and J.J. Handley of the Wisconsin Federation of Labor.
The minutes of meetings are not so complete as to information as the convention proceedings, but they are continuous, and trace the history of the organization through the years after the First World War, years which witnessed the gradual decline of the organization from the high point it reached in membership and importance, during and just after the war. Some of the subjects to which the minutes relate are the business affairs of the organization, financial matters (particularly the problem of a large indebtedness in the 1920s), membership, publication of the organization paper, the Equity News, general policies, dissensions, and personalities connected with the movement.
A few of the names of prominence in the Equity movement which appear at various times in the collection include those of George A. Nelson, Ben Lang, D.O. Mahoney, B.J. Gehrmann, E.C. Pommerening, J.B. Houston, F.J. Hertzfeld, and J.N. Tittemore.
