International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 32 (Lima, Ohio) records

The records of Local 32 provide the researcher with a good, albeit scattered, history of a northwestern Ohio labor organization. The most complete series within this collection are the regular minutes, which are complete from 1943 to 1964. These written records contain the names of the officers of the Local who were in attendance and the various matters that were discussed at each meeting. The discussions generally centered around voting on applications for membership or voting for officers of the Local. The regular minutes also contain other matters of business, such as approval of the payment of bills. The Executive Board minutes (1944 to 1964) mainly document requests and examinations for job reclassifications. The minutes of the Benefit Association (1957-1965) provide insight into the death care and death benefits offered to members and their families.

The next largest, and also quite complete, record series are the ledgers, of which there are two types. These consist of two volumes which contain information on the receipts and expenditures and five volumes that list each member's dues. The dues ledgers also contain information on the length of military service of the members. The researcher who is examining this series may be confused, initially, by the denotations "A" and "B" on the front of the two ledgers. These are merely the dues ledgers of those members whose card numbers begin with either "A" or "B."

The remaining portions of the collection contain items which, because of their incomplete nature, serve as examples of other series of records that one might encounter in a collection of this type. These documents consist of twelve pieces of correspondence, one Steward's Report, two resignations, one listing nominations for officers, one undated listing of officers, and two Resolutions by the Local on the event of the deaths of long-time members.

The early records (1898-1943) of this Local were destroyed in a flood, and the records since 1964 are being kept by the Local until they are microfilmed, at which time the originals will be transferred to the CAC. These records should be of interest to anyone engaged in research concerning the history of labor, especially at the local level.