AFL and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer's Office, Charter Books
Collection
0006-LBR-RG2-010
This is a ten volume collection of charter books that was maintained by the AFL Office of the Secretary-Treasurer from 1891-1966. These volumes record the chartering of federal labor unions, newly chartered state and local central bodies, and in some cases national and international unions affiliated with the AFL. The New York City Truck Drivers Union, as well as Canadian locals have some representation in these records.
This collection is open to the public and must be used in the Special Collections reading room. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.
Photocopies or digital surrogates may be provided in accordance with Special Collections and University Archives duplication policy.
Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs unless otherwise specified. It is the researcher's responsibility to secure permission to publish materials from the appropriate copyright holder.
Archival materials may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal and/or state right to privacy laws or other regulations. While we make a good faith effort to identify and remove such materials, some may be missed during our processing. If a researcher finds sensitive personal information in a collection, please bring it to the attention of the reading room staff.
10 Items (10 oversize boxes)
This is a ten volume collection of charter books divided into three sections. The main set is six volumes and spans the years 1891-1956. The second set of three volumes is an alternate collection of books spanning the years 1918-1966 including the New York City Truck Drivers Union. The third is a single volume containing Canadian locals, 1951-1956.
The main set of volumes (1-6) record the chartering of federal labor unions, newly chartered state and local central bodies, and in some cases national and international unions affiliated with the AFL. Each entry in the main set gives the date of the charter, amount received for the charter, the name of the union, city and state location, the name of the person who sent the fee and a column for remarks. Union numbers were not recorded until February 1895, and beginning in volume 2 a number was assigned to each entry. Sometimes other information such as suspension or rejection was entered. Often the name of the person to whom the charter fee was forwarded is provided.
The second set is an alternate group of books. These volumes overlap and duplicate those of the main set. A new numbering system introduced in January 1956 begins with the number 3000.
The single volume of Canadian locals provides the union number, location, and date chartered with paid membership figures for a twelve month period following the charter date.
The charters are maintained in chronological order.
The Office of the Secretary-Treasurer transferred these records to the George Meany Memorial Archives sometime before 1991. The George Meany Memorial Archives transferred these records as part of a major transfer of their archive and library holdings to the University of Maryland Libraries in 2013.
Sue Ann McMaster at the George Meany Memorial Archives initially processed these records in 1991. The University of Maryland Libraries received the records and the finding aid in 2013. In 2017, Bria Parker exported and cleaned the finding aid contents from the Eloquent Systems database using OpenRefine, and finally transformed the finding aids into Encoded Archival Description (EAD) using a series of programmatic scripts. The finding aid was ingested into ArchivesSpace in 2017, at which point Jennifer Eidson updated the descriptive content for accuracy. Revisions include changes to scope and content notes, and the creation of new collection numbers. Jennifer Eidson also enhanced custodial histories and re-wrote collection titles to better conform to archival standards.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives