Archives West Finding Aid

The material in this series document the general and administrative activities of the Utah affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. It has been divided by topic, with the first two boxes containing correspondence of a general, non-specific nature. Materials involving membership and fund raising should be considered as one topic, and correspondence concerning membership issues is filed in the same location as correspondence concerning fund raising. Financial records stored in boxes 12-14 list both expenditures and income, while fund raising files in boxes 8-11 involve only income and activities used to produce it. Box 16, Cooperating Attorneys, should not be confused with the records of the affiliate's Legal Panel. While the Legal Panel was involved in discussed complaints brought to the ACLU, and made decisions concerning litigation or other recourse, the materials in box 16 stem from the recruitment and activities of attorneys participating in ACLU-backed litigation. The remaining boxes in this section hold a variety of documents concerned with other aspects of the affiliate's activities: personnel, volunteers, public education, local chapters, the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights, and office administration. Newsletters produced by the Utah affiliate are found in box 119.

Boxes 20-34 contain items produced through the administrative activities of the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union. The items in these boxes are not concerned with specific activities of the ACLU of Utah, and as a result of their generalized nature, are organized into broad categories. Also, this series is concerned solely with administrative matters and events of a national scope. Material explicitly concerned with the administrative activities of the Utah affiliate is found under relevant subject headings in series I of this collection. Materials which address civil liberties issues are found in series III. The exception to this division occurs in boxes 24-28, in which material outlining ACLU policy on civil liberties issues is filed, and papers discussing these issues that were given at ACLU Biennial Conferences, are found. Boxes 31-32 contain miscellaneous documents produced by ACLU affiliates nationwide, and box 33 holds a variety of ACLU publications. Newsletters published by the national ACLU and its affiliates are found in boxes 119-123. The ACLU's series of "The Rights of..." handbooks are in box 127.

The materials in this series are arranged according to civil liberties issue. The material in each subject is grouped in the following order: Utah affiliate correspondence (including national office correspondence explicitly related to the Utah ACLU); national ACLU correspondence; documents stemming from the activities of other organizations; articles, reports, and other monographs; legislative records; court documents for Utah cases (whether or not the ACLU was involved); court documents for non-Utah court cases (these have a state, country, or jurisdictional notation); reference material discussing relevant litigation (hereafter referred to as "case citations"); handwritten notes; newsletters; brochures; news clippings; and miscellaneous items. Notes and news clippings are not indexed. While some of the issue subjects provide enough material to occupy several boxes and be separated into distinct subject folders, others only occupy several, or even one, folders. In these cases, items such as local and national correspondence are not differentiated, and items that otherwise would be separated, such as news clippings, brochures, newsletters, notes and miscellaneous, have been combined into one "miscellaneous" file. Many of the activities of the ACLU, and the cases they were involved in, cover several different civil liberties issues. (For instance, an employment discrimination case involving religious issues.) As a result, a researcher should be prepared to consider these alternate classifications when searching for materials. Some subtopics for which significant amounts of material have been found are separated into distinct categories. For example, materials discussing religion are separated from other first amendment materials and documents discussing prayer are further separated. Likewise, the topic of abortion has been handled as an area distinct from other women's issues.

This section contains newsletters produced by ACLU affiliates, including the Utah affiliate. While just one or two issues are found from most of the affiliates, the ACLU of Utah newsletters comprise a nearly complete run. The newsletter produced by the national ACLU, Civil Liberties, also comprises a nearly complete run for the time span 1957-1992, and is located in boxes 109-111.

Box 112 contains meeting notices, agendas and minutes for legislative committees. The ACLU's involvement in these committees resulted from its capacity as an advisory group, or as an interested lobbying organization. Box 1113 contains legislative summaries and miscellaneous items concerned with the Legislature.