Jefferson Center for Education and Research records

The Jefferson Center collection includes meeting materials and minutes, correspondence, forest product research, published and unpublished manuscripts, articles, photographs and other media relating to non-timber forest harvester/workers, rural communities and contingent laborers. The collection is organized into series and subseries. Many materials are available in English, Spanish, Cambodian and Lao.

Series I: Administration, Subseries A: Financial Records (1994-2005) provides insight into the account management of a new non-profit and includes financial information and some fundraising records. A much larger group of fundraising records can be found in Series V: Fundraising.

Subseries B: Personnel Records includes job descriptions, applications and resumes. This subseries reveals the difficulties in filling multicultural positions.

Subseries C: Internal Documents, 1994-2007, provides information about the Jefferson Center Board of Directors and includes internal evaluations among other internal business documentation. The oral interview transcriptions used to write the Voices from the Woods publication are located in this subseries. Some transcriptions are restricted from the public until a later date for privacy reasons.

Subseries D: General Business includes the forms and contact information the Center used when conducting business.

Subseries E: Popular Education highlights why and how Jefferson Center chose a Popular Education approach to facilitating self-education and dialogue between groups, rather than using the more typical top-down formal education approach (See also Series VII: Other Meetings for documents from Popular Education meetings).

Subseries F: Cultural Exchange includes Spanish, Lao, Cambodian and English cultural materials that were used at Jefferson Center meetings to facilitate cross-cultural exchange. Examples include song lyrics, sheet music, and labor/folk songs.

Subseries G: Publications, 1998-2006 consists of Jefferson Center meeting reports, bulletins and manuscript projects in multiple languages.

Series II: Correspondence, 1985—2004, is arranged into three Subseries:

Subseries A: Incoming is organized alphabetically by sender.

Subseries B: Outgoing is organized by date.

Subseries C: Topical Correspondence is organized alphabetically by name and/or subject. A significant portion of this subseries includes documentation of Jefferson Center’s coordinated letter writing campaigns.

Series III: Working Notes, 1994-2003, is organized by meeting, subject or by note taker. This Series also includes daily journal logs by Beverly Brown.

Series IV: Networking Visits, 1997-2001, is organized by name of trip. Notes, reports, correspondence and other documents provide insight into Jefferson Center’s visits to areas in Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Alabama and Mexico to learn and work with groups and advocates of forest workers/harvesters, rural workers and contingent laborers.

Series V: Fundraising Files,1991-2004, is organized alphabetically by the donor agency name, and then by date within an agency if there is more than one folder for any donor. This series offers a rich source of documentation on why and how a non-profit seeks funding for its services and how donors choose which organizations to fund.

Series VI: Forest Worker Harvester Gatherings, 1994-2001, records the history and documentation of the Jefferson Center’s meetings with forest workers and harvesters. This series is organized into subseries’ by year, and meeting folders are arranged chronologically within each year. Materials include meeting minutes, reports, correspondence, attendance and publications. Please see also Series XII: Photographs for pictures from many of these meetings.

Series VII: Meetings, Workshops and Conferences, 1991-2007, document the numerous meetings and workshops that Jefferson Center staff attended. Notes, reports and correspondence offer insight into how the Jefferson Center researched ideas and opportunities to improve and expand its services and how to better collaborate with “sister” organizations.

Series VIII: Other Organizations, 1981-2009, is organized alphabetically by organization name. This series offers information on the varied “sister” organizations that the Jefferson Center often collaborated with and sometimes requested funding from. This series offers researchers entry into a network of rural/forest workers, contingent labor and natural resource advocates.

Series IX: Publications is organized alphabetically by the title of publication.

Series X: Subject Files includes thirty-five related subjects organized alphabetically by title of subject. This series emphasizes the research arm of the Jefferson Center. Subjects include Asian history and labor, contingent labor, ecosystem management, forests and timber, immigration, non-timber forest workers/harvesters and rural communities

Series XI: Electronic Media includes CD Rom, DVD, Video and Audio tapes.

Subseries A: CD Rom and DVD includes Jefferson Center photographs, meeting materials and documents on disk.

Subseries B: Video includes meeting and conference recordings, interviews, footage from mushroom camps, and an oral history video interview of Beverly Brown.

Subseries C: Audio Cassette Tapes – Multiple topics consists of interviews with non-timber harvester/gatherers, rural Oregonians, sister organizations, gatherings, meetings and conferences. The cassettes are organized by title.

Subseries D: Audio Cassette Tapes: Voices from the Woods Interviews (Current and Restricted Access) focuses on the audio interviews of participants that became a part of the Voices from the Woods publication project. The cassettes are organized by name of interview subject. Some of these interviews will be restricted from research until their individual release date is reached.

Series XII: Photographs is arranged into twenty-one subseries by subject, type of image (i.e. slide, negative or photograph) and/or by size of photograph. Researchers will find pictorial documentation of Jefferson Center staff, gatherings, meetings, visitors, workers and networking trips. The photographs come in a variety of sizes and some are in color and some are in black and white.

Series XIII: Oversize includes documents from other series that, because of their size, needed to by physically segregated from the other materials. Items include meeting flipchats and publications.