The fonds consists of series of correspondence; subject files; diaries and notebooks; lectures and speeches; reports of the Bureau of Social Research; C.C.F. mailing lists; printed material; souvenirs; personal papers; and scrapbooks.
The fonds also contains photographs of the Woodsworth family; the political activities of J.S. Woodsworth; and portraits of J.S. Woodsworth and Lucy Staples (later Mrs. J.S. Woodsworth).
Woodsworth, J. S. (James Shaver), 1874-1942 : James Shaver Woodsworth, leader of the C.C.F., Member of Parliament, was born in Etobicoke Township, Ontario, and was educated at Wesley College, Winnipeg, the University of Toronto and Oxford University. He was ordained in the Methodist Church in 1896 and served as an assistant pastor, 1902-1908, and director of All People's Mission, 1908-1915, in Winnipeg, but resigned from the ministry in 1918. From 1915-1917 he served as director of the Bureau of Social Research for the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. In 1921 he was elected to the House of Commons as an Independent Labour candidate for Winnipeg North Centre, and he continued to represent that riding until his death in 1942. He was one of the founders of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in 1932 and its leader until his resignation in 1940.
Woodsworth was the author of 'Stranger within our gates', 1908, 'My neighbour', 1910, and 'Studies in rural citizenship', 1915. He destroyed most of his personal papers in 1940.
