International Clothing Workers Federation: 1926

Significant individual correspondents include: Luigi Antonini; David Dubinsky; William Z. Foster; Morris Hillquit; Julius Hochman; Samuel Gompers; William Green; Herbert H. Lehman; John L. Lewis; Salvatore Ninfo; Meyer Perlstein; Elias Reisberg; Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York; and Norman Thomas.

Notable organizations in represented in the collection include: the American Federation of Labor; the British Trades Union Congress; Brookwood Labor College; the Chicago Federation of Labor; the Committee of One Hundred for the Defense of Imprisoned Needle Trade Workers; the Governor's Advisory Commission on the Cloak and Suit Industry (New York State); the International Association of Machinists; ILGWU Locals 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 17, 20, 22, 35, 50, 64, and 80; the ILGWU Workers' Education Bureau; the Needle Trade Union (Warsaw, Poland); Needle Trades Workers' Union of the USSR; the New York State Federation of Labor; the Tailors' and Garment Workers' Trade Union (Great Britain); the Trade Union Educational League; the Unemployment Insurance Fund of the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Industry of New York City; Union Labor Life Insurance Company; the United Garment Workers of America; the United Ladies' Tailors Trade Union (Great Britain); the United Mine Workers of America; Unity House (the ILGWU-owned workers' resort); radio station WEVD (the Eugene Debs memorial radio station in New York City); and the Wholesale Dress Manufacturers' Association.

Among the topics covered are: communist activity in the ILGWU, and the leadership's battle against a communist takeover of the union; conditions in the U.S. garment industry, particularly in New York City; education for workers; inter- and intra-union relations; ILGWU locals, with an emphasis on the New York City area; strikes in the garment industry (in particular the Cloakmakers' strike of 1926), as well as in other industries; life and unemployment insurance for union members; relations with other garment workers' unions in the U.S., Great Britain, Poland and the Soviet Union, and with the International Clothing Workers' Federation in Amsterdam; relations with the garment manufacturers; unemployment insurance; union legal matters; and union organizing activities.