The William T. Ham collection contains notes, reports, research material, and clippings relating labor issues from the 1920s through the 1940s. Many of the files are from Ham's time at Harvard, where he studied and taught economics. Many of the research files from this time relate to labor issues and industry in Boston prior to 1926, as well as labor issues in general in the United States prior to 1935. His study of unions and union issues are particularly well documented. The collection also contains many research notes and materials relating to German labor organizations prior to 1935. Much of this material is in German, although Ham's notes are all in English. A large portion of the collection consists of files relating to Ham's governmental career. Most of these files relate to farm labor issues and wages in the United States in the 1930s-1940s. This includes files from Ham's time working for the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics (BAE), among others. There are few personal files included in the collection, although a run of correspondence from his wife in the late 1920s is present.
