Sources of Inquiry

Case 11: Organizational Records

Corporations, non-profit organizations, labor unions, political parties, and other formally organized groups of people generate records in unique and distinct formats. These materials document an organization's work in realizing its mission, regular activities it conducted, and special projects it completed. They can offer unique insights into a group's impact on our society by helping us understand exactly what it did, why it did it, and how it did it, and can also provide insights into the lives of the individuals who worked for or with the organization.

Regardless of mission, formally organized groups often generate similar types of records, especially minutes, the official records of committee proceedings; bylaws, the rules and regulations by which an organization governs itself; articles of incorporation, documents that formally establish an organization or corporation's existence; constitutions, the set of essential principles by which an organization is governed; and charters, grants of authority given to one organization by another.

On display in the case are records from a labor union, a family business, an activist organization, a political party, a support group, a university committee, a hate group, and an international commission. They include minutes of a special meeting held by Local 13 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehouseman's union during the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, and minutes from the Committee on Mexican-American Studies at San Fernando Valley State College, in which faculty and others discussed the structure and curriculum of the new Mexican-American Studies Department. On the wall is a reproduction of Los Angeles' charter from the International Olympic Commission, under which the city hosted the 1984 Olympic Games.

Case 12, Ephemera, is located to the right.

• 1

  Minutes of Special Meeting, June 14, 1934International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), Local 13 Records, Part I

• 2

  By-Laws of the Mulholland Orchard Company, December 17, 1926Catherine Mulholland Collection

• 3

  Articles of Incorporation of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, August 13, 1981Don White Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) Collection

• 4

  Proposed Bylaws, Democratic State Central Committee of California, August 10, 1958California State Democratic Central Committee Collection

• 5

  Constitution of the Society for the Second SelfSociety for the Second Self (Tri-Ess) Records

• 6

  Minutes, Committee on Mexican-American Studies, San Fernando Valley State College, March 12, 1969Julian Nava Collection

• 7

  By-Laws of the Knights of the Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan (KKK), Realm of California Records

• 8

  Olympic Charter, 1982Ann Stutts Olympic Games Collection