Albany County Lodge: Benefit Fund Membership Certificates and Receipts, 1904-1908

Files of the International (originally "Independent") Order of Good Templars include correspondence (1901-59) of Sturges, National Chief Templar Ben D. Wright, Laura R. Church, D.W. McNeil, Tom Honeyman, C. Wilmer King, and other officers and members regarding IOGT business and related subjects; appeals by members against actions taken by Grand Lodges with related correspondence (1914-29); typescript and MS. notes pertaining to the history of the IOGT and the organization, history, and membership of various lodges; minutes, financial records, and membership lists (26 vols. and loose items, 1871-1957) of lodges in Albany and Niagara Counties and elsewhere, mainly in New York State; printed lodge constitutions (ca. 1855-1919); notes (5 vols., ca. 1866-ca. 1906) pertaining to changes in the constitution of the Grand Lodge of New York; journals of proceedings and officers' reports (1856-1978) for the Grand Lodge of New York and other national and regional lodges; books of ritual and degree and many brochures, pamphlets, and books concerning temperance, prohibition, and the IOGT; publications including the NATIONAL TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE (1870-1873), the OFFICIAL ORGAN and its successor, the NEW YORK TEMPLAR AND OFFICIAL ORGAN (1883-1942, incomplete), the INTERNATIONAL GOOD TEMPLAR (1888-1962, incomplete), and the NATIONAL GOOD TEMPLAR (1910-12, 1938-62, incomplete); IOGT certificates and blank forms; and photographs, including one of William Jennings Bryan.

Also, personal papers, mainly drafts and typescript and mimeographed copies of Sturges' remarks (March 11, 1930) questioning the constitutionality of the Eighteenth Amendment at a hearing before the Judiciary Committees of the New York State Legislature, as well as his correspondence and suggestions for the revision of that amendment.