This series includes a wide variety of material that documents Jessie Lloyd O'Connor's personal history, as well as her professional accomplishments. There is also biographical information about members of her extended family. The bulk of the series covers the period from the 1920s to 1988 and includes articles, interviews, personal records, school papers and memorabilia, financial and legal documents, correspondence, memorabilia, and photographs. The subseries are Articles and interviews, Personal records, Education, Financial and legal materials, Homes and other real estate, Death, F.B.I. files, Memorabilia, Family, and Photographs. Education includes not only a record of O'Connor's studies from grade school and church school through Smith College, but a small amount of information about her extra-curricular activities, and a substantial amount of material relating to her Smith College alumnae activities. There is also alumnae business related correspondence scattered throughout SERIES II. CORRESPONDENCE--Friends and associates. Financial and legal material provides a thorough overview of O'Connor's involvement in Lloyd and Maverick family business interests, as well as information about her personal expenses, insurance, etc. The family correspondence related to business interests that appears here overlaps significantly with that included in the family correspondence in SERIES II, notably that of George "Brother" Green who was in charge of the George Maverick Trust, but also that of O'Connor's Lloyd relatives. Homes and real estate also contains some financial and legal material but also contains more general material, such as floor plans; correspondence with the overseer of William Bross Lloyd's Jamaican estate; and preservation of the Henry Demarest Lloyd homes in Winnetka, Illinois, and Sakonnet, Rhode Island. Family consists of articles, correspondence, memorabilia, and other biographical material O'Connor collected about various family members. Photographs includes not only family snapshots and albums, but two folders of photographs related to O'Connor's work as a journalist in the 1930s in North Carolina and Pittsburgh.

This series is organized into three subseries: Family, Friends and associates, and General/business.

All of the subseries include both incoming and outgoing correspondence filed together chronologically and include items that were enclosed with correspondence: clippings, memorabilia, photographs, and third party correspondence. This is especially the case for the Family correspondence because many family members were inclined to exchange clippings and copies of correspondence received from a third family member. For this reason the researcher will find, for example, letters from Mary Lloyd included in letters between Jessie and her other siblings, Georgia Lloyd Berndt Beshears and William B. Lloyd, Jr. The family correspondence reveals a strong sense of a shared activist tradition among descendents of the likes of Henry Demarest Lloyd, Samuel Maverick, and Lola Maverick Lloyd. The letters reflect family members' keen consciousness that with wealth comes an obligation to society, not only for implementing progressive change, but also on the level of individual charity. There is also extensive personal material about relationships within the family, notably the protracted and difficult divorce of Lola Maverick Lloyd and William Bross Lloyd, Sr. and the adoption of Stephen and Kathleen O'Connor.

O'Connor was a prolific correspondent with Friends and associates as well as family members. She maintained relationships through the years with the famous and not so famous by corresponding often and at length. Some of her better known correspondents in this subseries include Emily Greene Balch, Ella Reeve Bloor, Jean and Leonard Boudin, Ann and Carl Braden, Emmett Pat Cush, Virginia Foster Durr, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Carl and Lucy Haessler Josephine Herbst, Grace Hutchins, Hays Jones, Corliss and Helen Lamont, Florence Luscomb, Darwin Meserole, Malvina and Bud Reynolds, Katherine Anne Porter, Franciska and Rosika Schwimmer, Pete and Toshi Seeger, Art and Esther Shields, Ching-ling Soong, Anna Louise Strong, Alexandra Tolstoy, and Mary Heaton Vorse. Other well known correspondents appear in other series and many are indicated by "see" and "see also" references, for example David Dellinger's correspondence is located in SERIES IV. ORGANIZATION FILES--Liberation. Less well-known correspondents are illuminating on topics as wide and varied as O'Connor's interests. For example, Y. Veenis, a friend from the O'Connors' Pittsburgh days, wrote about changes that had occurred in conditions in the steel industry, and Jule Seibel sent updates on the financial condition of the Federated Press. Correspondence of Evelyn Platt Merlin, a young woman who O'Connor took under her wing, and Evelyn's grandmother, Florence Winterburne, provide one example of O'Connor's frequent financial contributions to individuals who asked for her help.

General/business includes a chronologically arranged section of miscellaneous correspondence on a wide array to topics, followed by an alphabetically arranged section of subjects and organizations for which there is a substantial amount of correspondence. Within the subjects, the large amount of correspondence with archives and libraries reflects O'Connor's interest in her family's history and the placement of various family papers. The process of adopting the two O'Connor children is well documented in the "Children" section. Three folders of correspondence in this section related to Kathleen O'Connor are restricted until her death. The Public correspondence provides an overview of O'Connor's political opinions over the years and includes letters to editors, legislators, and other public officials. If it was clear that a letter to the editor had been published it has been placed in SERIES III. WRITINGS.

The series is organized into nine subseries: Diaries, Correspondence (about writings), Articles and essays, Speeches, London Daily Herald, Federated Press, Memoirs, Notes and research material, and By other family. The Articles and essays subseries is organized alphabetically by title and when no title exists, by subject.

Jessie Lloyd O'Connor wrote on many different topics, and her strong opinions and wide range of interests are evident in the writings series. Numerous writings on political themes can be found with the works with titles, as well as her "Story of the Ford Peace Ship," an account of the Lloyd family's trip to Europe on Henry Ford's peace mission during World War I. Among works filed by subject are the numerous writings generated by O'Connor's travels to Russia. They include a satirical unpublished novel entitled A Flapper Goes to Russia, articles published by the New York Times Magazine, and her work for the English-language Moscow Daily News. Correspondence, research material, and some financial and legal documents from Russia are also located in the writings series. O'Connor's musical compositions are filed in the subjects section of Articles and essays and include an audiotape recording of her singing her songs. The London Daily Herald subseries contains correspondence, articles, and printed material concerning her coverage of the 1927 League of Nations conference in Geneva.

The Federated Press subseries documents O'Connor's most famous assignment for the left-wing news organization, the replacement of a reporter who had been attacked by a sniper during the violent mine strikes in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1931. O'Connor remained after being threatened by local vigilantes, and her time in Harlan is well documented in the articles and research material collected here. There is also material from her other Federated Press assignments, including articles and a pamphlet from the violent Gastonia, North Carolina textile strike. Her coverage of various Pennsylvania news stories, especially Pittsburgh mine and steel mill strikes is also well documented. Memoirs consist of the correspondence, drafts, and published versions of Jessie and Harvey O'Connor's autobiographies: the self-published Contumacious Couple: Memoirs of Harvey and Jessie O'Connor, 1985, and a version of it edited by Susan Bowler, Harvey and Jessie: A Couple of Radicals (Temple University Press: Philadelphia), 1988.

Notes and research material is a large subseries consisting of the many notes Jessie wrote and compiled throughout her life. These contain her thoughts on many subjects, ranging from story ideas, names and phone numbers of those she sought to enlist in her causes, or commentary on contemporary events. Where possible the notes have been arranged by date or subject. The final writings subseries is material written by Other family members. Particularly interesting are the writings of her pacifist mother Lola Maverick Lloyd.

Alphabetically arranged files.

This series consists of files on organizations in which O'Connor was deeply involved, such as the League of Women Shoppers, as well as others with which she seems to have had a more passing connection, making donations and/or collecting mailings. The series includes correspondence, brochures and other printed material, newsletters, and notes. O'Connor worked in the leadership of a number of local organizations-the American League against War and Fascism in Pittsburgh; the Progressive Party, especially Henry Wallace's presidential campaign, and the CIO- Political Action Committee in Texas; and in Chicago for Hull House (where she was a resident in the early 1940s), The Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, among others. Files for these organizations document O'Connor's extensive volunteer work and more generally, organizations of the American Left, especially in the Cold War years. The papers also contain material from organizations with which she appears to have had no direct involvement. These have been saved to highlight the variety of her interests and to suggest the wide array of progressive and radical organizations that existed during the 1930s through the Cold War years, as well as those from the 1960s on which may be more familiar.

Some of the more ephemeral organizational materials have been grouped with other material in the appropriate category in SERIES V. SUBJECT FILES.

Arranged alphabetically.

The subject files contain a wide variety of printed material, as well as correspondence, notes, and some organizational materials. Broad subject areas that are also represented by material in the WRITINGS and ORGANIZATION FILES series, such as labor and peace, tend to contain miscellaneous printed material, often from organizations with which O'Connor seemed to have little or peripheral involvement. Other broad areas of interest, such as Music and Children/youth document her deep interest in subjects near to her heart, respectively songwriting and folk dancing, and her two children. Files on admired friends and activists like Ella Reeve Bloor, Anne and Carl Braden, and Pete Seeger, also contain material of a more personal nature. Some of the documents filed here may have been research material for O'Connor's writings or potential writings that were not identified as such and thus may overlap with materials in the WRITINGS series.