The United Federation of Teachers Hans Weissenstein Negatives Collection is comprised of 22,110 black and white negatives (mostly 120mm format) shot by commercial photographer Hans Weissenstein (aka Whitestone Studios) for the Teachers Guild and United Federation of Teachers. These images document the activities and meetings of UFT chapters (including those for non-teacher school employees), demonstrations of UFT members, schools, students, and teachers; dinners, luncheons, award ceremonies, and scholarship presentations; dedications, memorial services, and check presentations, as well as holidays and other "dedicated days" and weeks that mark the regular rhythm of organizational life and punctuate the school year. The Collection also contains images depicting professional development via training and workshops, and the UFT's relationship to New York City and state politics and politicians. In addition, a small, but significant portion of the Collection reflects the rising consciousness of ethnic identity among students, teachers, and parents, as well as some of its attendant tensions in New York City schools, such as the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis. In addition, the Collection offers a small amount of visual documentation of the Teachers' Guild, a UFT predecessor union.

The basic unit of this collection is the "shoot" - that is, a single image or a group of images shot at one particular event or related group of events. Each of these shoots has been identified and described in a separate entry that includes a date, if known, shoot description (derived from caption information inscribed by Weissenstein on the original negative sleeve). Each image within a shoot has also been assigned an item number (e.g., the third image in shoot number 500 would be #500-03); these frame numbers are inscribed on the sleeves in which the negatives are stored. (Note that these assigned item numbers are not necessarily same as the numbers printed on the negative frames themselves.) Where multiple negatives come in strips (as in 35mm format), frame numbers have been assigned from left to right, in ascending order.

The shoots are listed in topical series-for the most part in chronological order. The same shoot may (and often does) appear in several series lists, when its subject content falls into more than one category.

The collection includes 151 black and white prints, 83 of which have identified matching negatives.

Series I: Administration and Services. The UFT's own administrative offices are included in this series, as well as courses for UFT members, such as high school equivalency and college application classes for para-professionals.

Series II: Ceremonies. A diverse range of images documenting award ceremonies, scholarship presentations, dedications, memorial services, and official dinners and luncheons. Includes images documenting Albert Shanker's release from jail (after being imprisoned under the Taylor Law) and the following celebratory reception.

Series III: Chapters. Features specific UFT chapters such as Para-Professionals, School Secretaries, Guidance Counselors and local chapters. The majority of these images document the activities of the Para-Professionals.

Series IV: Committees. UFT committees, usually shown in meetings.

Series V: Conferences. UFT conferences, such as the annual Spring Conference and MES (More Effective Schools program) conferences.

Series VI: Contracts and Negotiations. Bargaining sessions and contract signings at the NYC Board of Education and other locations.

Series VII: Dedicated Days/Weeks/Celebrations. Holidays and dedicated day/week celebrations, mostly shot in schools. Most commonly depicted are Puerto Rican Discovery Day, Black History events, and Chinese New Year celebrations. Highlights include student guides showing African-American history museums they created and reading aloud poems by Langston Hughes. Also included are images showing a New York City public school observing Earth Day the first year this event was celebrated.

Series VIII: Demonstrations/Rallies. Demonstrations shot outside of school board meetings, City Hall, Gracie Mansion (the official residence of New York City mayors), and individual schools. These images include a protest by the Jewish Defense League against radio host, Julius Lester, after an anti-semitic poem was read on his radio broadcast, shots of an apparent counter-protest, and demonstrators being arrested by the police. Other highlights are a mock-funeral procession to City Hall, demonstrations calling for traffic lights, and a number of events with demonstrators carrying picket signs in different languages. This series also encompasses images related to vigils, boycotts, and jailing of strikers.

Series IX: UFT Elections and Voting. Shots of individual candidates, ballot counting, and UFT members voting in chapter, district and other elections.

Series X: Individuals. Arranged alphabetically by last name of the most prominent individual listed in the shoot caption. Includes portraits of single individuals, as well as images of named individuals in groups. While most of the identified individuals are UFT (or one of its predecessor organization's) officers (such as Albert Shanker, Charles Cogen, Jules Kolodny, and David Selden) or members, leaders of other unions or labor organizations (such as Cesar Chavez and George Meany), New York City and state and national politicians (including Bella Abzug, Herman Badillo, Shirley Chisholm, Jacob Javits, Edward Koch, and Nelson Rockefeller), and prominent civil rights leaders (such as Bayard Rustin and Whitney Young) are also represented.

Series XI: Legislative and Government. NYC Board of Education meetings, budget hearings, and various other legislative or government hearings and related events.

Series XII: Meetings. UFT mass meetings, chapter meetings held at schools and other locations, as well as some meetings sponsored by other organizations and attended by UFT members and/or staff. Many of the accompanying captions identify speakers and/or topics of the meetings, as well as locations.

Series XIII: Officers and Official Business. Chapter chairperson meetings and delegate assemblies are documented. Highlights include images of the presentation of the UFT's charter from the American Federation of Teachers.

Series XIV: Parents. Parental involvement in education, including parent-teacher associations and parent participation programs.

Series XV: Political. Political action committees, demonstrations at national political party conventions, and demonstrations of solidarity, with the UFT lending support to other labor organizations such as Painters District Council 9, the United Farm Workers' (grape boycott), and the Social Service Employees Union (AFSCME, Local 371).

Series XVI: UFT Programs. Meetings, conferences and courses sponsored by the MES (More Effective Schools) and QuEST (Quality Educational Standards in Teaching) programs make up the bulk of this series. Also included are images documenting drug education programs for students and students getting tested for sickle cell anemia at a clinic.

Series XVII: Publicity. Press conferences make up the majority of these images. Also included are a few shoots showing radio interviews and tapings of television shows.

Series XVIII: Retired Teachers. Retired teachers and their organizations from both New York City and New York State.

Series XIX: School Districts. Meetings or events concerning specific school districts. All images have a school district named in the photographer-provided caption, and captions identify many individuals as well.

Series XX: Schools/Students/Teachers.Schools and students identified by school name and/or number, as well as more "generic" images of teachers and classroom scenes. Names of teachers or selected students are included in some captions. Many images show students performing in school plays or at work in the classroom. Highlights include: the public school for Rikers Island prison with male and female students engagiedin vocational training and legal education courses; students learning English, with ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teaching guidelines on the bulletin boards; graffiti and damage to school buildings; students attending a class in a teacher's apartment; an attendance counselor visiting the homes of students.

Series XXI: Special Education. Features demonstrations and rallies on behalf of education for disabled students and improvement of education for deaf students, as well as events such as a wheelchair baseball game and a baseball game played by disabled children.

Series XXII: Strikes. Strikes and strike planning. Highlights include Teachers Guild strike images from the 1940s and 1950s, and images the of earliest strike actions by the UFT. Venues such as St. Nicholas Arena, Manhattan Center (both favorite locations for labor union mass meetings), and the Marc Ballroom, as well as various hotels, form the backdrop for these activities.

Series XXIII: Training, Certification, and Workshops. Professional and administrative development programs including narcotics clinics and language workshops.

Series XXIV: Miscellaneous.Events that cannot be precisely categorized based on the photographer's original caption and/or the information in the images themselves. Series includes teachers and UFT officers exploring new tools and technologies such as Cuisenaire Rods (colored rods of varying lengths used for teaching mathematics), magnetic tape, the talking typewriter and "Dial-a-Drill." Art exhibits not further identified by school or sponsoring organization, clothing drives, a teacher's check reproduction and a city planning map are also included in the series.

Series XXV: Predecessor Union: Teachers' Guild. The Teachers' Guild and its participation strikes, celebrations, charity drives (such as the March of Dimes) and other special events. Images of the "Polio Pioneers," the first children who received the Salk polio vaccine, are particularly striking.

Series XXVI: Other Teachers' Organizations. Images documenting activities of teacher organizations, including Empire State Teachers, the United Federation of College Teachers and the Professional Staff Congress.

Series XXVII: Other Labor Organizations. Non-teacher labor unions and umbrella or action organizations representing labor unions or labor-related issues, including the AFL-CIO, Frontlash, the NYC Central Labor Council, and Painters District Council 9.

Series XXVIII: Other Organizations. A small number of images of or relating to non-labor-related organizations, including politically progressive, professional, charitable, or fraternal groups such as the Brotherhood in Action, the Ethical Culture Society and the National Conference for Community and Justice.