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Archives of the Fairmont Labor Temple, 1921-1940, including certificate of incorporation, bylaws, financial records, minutes, and correspondence. There are also notes on the labor movement in Marion County, compiled by Huett Nestor, concerning the membership and officers of local unions, and a list of "Prominent Members of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. from Marion County."

Joe Ozanic went to work in the coal mines of Mt. Olive, joining in 1909, UMW Local 728. After serving briefly in the army during World War I, Ozanic returned to work in the mines at Mt. Olive. In 1932, Ozanic joined the Progressive Mine Workers of America, a rival organization to the United Mine Workers, serving both as president of PMWA District 1 and as national president. During the 1940s, Ozanic was an organizer for the American Federation of Labor. These papers reflect Ozanic's involvement with the Progressive Mine Workers and the American Federation of Labor. Material from his career as a union leader includes correspondence, financial records, speeches, certificates, newspaper clippings, photographs, broadsides, scripts for plays, union convention proceedings, contracts, bylaws, constitutions, and miscellaneous publications. Subjects include the National Labor Relations Board, American labor unions during World War II, the Union Miners' Cemetery at Mt. Olive, Illinois, AFL organizing drives, miners' marches in Illinois, Mother Jones, and John L. Lewis. Among the correspondents are Joe Pecik, John Fancher, and Vivian Pleska. Ozanic's personal papers include family correspondence, receipts, certificates, memorabilia, and photographs. The correspondence includes postcards from Ozanic to his wife and son from various places in the United States and Ozanic's certificate of competency as a coal miner, issued by the Illinois Miners Examining Board in 1917.

Transcript of an interview by Richard Hadsell with Major W.P. Tams, Jr., former mine operator in the Winding Gulf coal mining region. Tams discusses his early days in coal mining, the opening of the Kanawha coal region, and coal operators and union officials such as: E.J. Berwind, Joe Beury, George Collins, Jarius Collins, Justus Collins, John J. Cornwell, Samuel Dixon, Elias Hatfield, Troy Hatfield, Isaac Mann, S.T. Patterson, J.A. Renahan, James O. Watts, and George Wolfe. Other individuals mentioned include: Henry D. Hatfield, John L. Lewis, John Mitchell, Fred Mooney, Bob Patterson, and "Mother" Mary Jones. Tams also discusses the Winding Gulf Collieries, the Beaver Coal Co., the Smokeless Coal Field, the N&W Railroad, the C&O Railroad, the Virginian Railroad, Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, unions and strikes, racial relations, blacks, scrip, company stores, Atwater, and Castner, Curran and Bullitt.

Correspondence of W.K. Marshall, a West Virginia railroad engineer, includes letters received from his wife and sons in Callaghan, Virginia, as well as the letters he wrote to them. This collection also includes letters from Marshall's brother and niece. Marshall's correspondence concerns the following subjects: personal and family matters; employment conditions on the railroad; railroad accidents; trade union and fraternal society insurance plans. Letters from Marshall's wife touch on people and events in Callaghan, Virginia and on the family's farm work.

Letter from Mary "Mother" Jones to T.V. Powderly, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. "Mother" Jones introduces Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers, District 17, asks Powderly to get him a passport, and says she does not know when she will leave for Mexico.

Extensive financial records, constitutions, bylaws, membership records, minutes to meetings, recruitment programs, and elections material circulated by COPE, the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education. Included are inter-union correspondence on strikes, political lobbying efforts, policy statements, and candidate questionnaires which were sent out by COPE.