Washington-Oregon Canning Pear Association Records, 1953-1974

The records of The Washington-Oregon Canning Pear Association include minutes, correspondence, financial statements, price data and production statistics, newsletters and photographs of the association of pear producers in Oregon and Washington State. Correspondents include buyers and United States Representative Catherine May.

The first series, minutes, contains minutes of the directors, general, district, and some committee meetings for the period October 1953 through June 1962. Some correspondence is included in the two loose-leaf binders of the minutes of directors and general meetings. The binders cover the period March 1954 through June 1962. The remainder of the minutes series includes records of district, directors, annual, and committee meetings during the period between 1953 through 1959.

The second series, the office files, includes material from the period between 1953 through 1962 with the bulk of this series centering on the late 1950's. Although there is no formal correspondence file or series, correspondence may be found throughout the office files under the many different subjects included in this series. The office files series contains material on directors, legislation, membership, production surveys, publicity, legal forms and files, and other subjects. Included in the office files series is an incomplete run of the Association newsletter "The Pear Facts," for the period April 1956 through August 1962.

The third series, the buyers file, is composed of correspondence and purchase and shipping orders from the various companies who bought pears from the Association during the period 1954 through 1974, with the bulk of the material after 1958.

The fourth series, the mimeo file, contains all the mimeographed material sent to the members of the association as well as that material sent to the directors, shippers and purchases, and news releases. Material in this series includes memoranda to the members and directors, shipping information, purchase price negotiations, financial statements from the Association, information on general and annual meetings, news releases, ballots for officers, production and price statistics, and some early issues of the Association newsletter.

The collection also includes some photographs, many of which are unidentified and/or undated, that have been placed at the end as the last series.