Legislative Reference Files, 1921-1978

This series includes correspondence, momoranda, transcripts, speeches, clippings, departmental surveys, reports, and official statements on pending bills and legislative issues. Most material is from the dates 1950-1968.

Subjects included in the series reflect the historically broad-based nature of the federation's efforts to secure legislation not only of interest to labor, but also of benefit to the whole of American society. Categories for which a substantial volume of records exist include: civil rights, health care, immigration reform, civilian control of atomic energy resources, fair labor standards, consumer protection, education, and equal employment opportunity for minorities, including the physically handicapped. Other important files include labor-management relations, dealing primarily with Taft-Hartley; the anti-Nazi boycott; the anti-poll tax campaign; farm workers; voter's rights, right-to-work legislation; and the post-World War II economy. The files of U.S. Presidents also contain historically valuable correspondence. Files of national and international union affiliates contain correspondence focusing on legislative efforts to protect organized workers from the "unfair" competition posed by New Deal relief agencies. Most of the routine correspondence deals with requests concerning the AFL-CIO's position on pending bills and strategies to secure their passage, and federation endorsements on the state and national levels.

Correspondents include: Roger Baldwin, Stephen Early, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry M. Jackson, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, James Loeb, Katherine Lenroot, William Lucy, H.L. Mitchell, Luis Morones, Bill Moyers, Richard M. Nixon, Claude Pepper, A. Philip Randolph, Joseph L. Rauh, Paul A. Strachan, Harry S. Truman, and Walter White.