California through Iowa, with Nebraska, 1936-1942

The CIO general files (1935-1955) include correspondence, CIO personnel files, committee files, financial records, and convention files. Subjects covered include organizing drives in rubber, auto, steel, electronics, timbering and shipbuilding industries; the rift between the AFL and CIO; the development of the CIO national staff; national politics; communism in the CIO; competition between the CIO and the UMWA in organizing industrial unions; impact of Taft-Hartley Act; and AFL-CIO merger negotiations.

The United Mine Workers of America files regarding loans and financial aid to CIO unions and industrial unions (1922-1955) document a number of loans made by the UMWA to industrial unions and to the CIO itself. Of special interest are the files on the CIO and the Teamsters loans.

The CIO Field Office files (1937-1942) contain records both from the CIO field offices and from Industrial Union Councils. These files document the CIO's jurisdictional and factional disputes, political activities and organizing drives.

The AFL general files (1929-1955) comprise John L. Lewis's correspondence both with and about AFL officials. The material documents the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s and the formation of the CIO, and it provides information on the UMWA's reaffiliation and second disaffiliation from the AFL in 1946 and 1947, respectively. Files for later years provide valuable material on the AFL-CIO merger in 1955.

United Steelworkers of America (1949-1962) is a continuation of the Steelworkers files in part I. For the most part the series is a newsclipping file; however, there are records detailing the UMWA strike fund assistance to the steelworkers, and there is some material relative to the proposed federation of the UMWA, the steelworkers union, and the Teamsters in the 1950s.