The collection consists of 218 3 "x 4" lantern slides. The majority are text captions from a lantern slide lecture created by the Central Labor Union Council to promote the creation and use of union labels (slide numbers 151 through 182) and images of the labels themselves--created by labor unions to identify goods and services produced or performed by the unions—or images that incorporate the labels that exhort viewers to purchase products with the labels (slide numbers 40 through 130a, and slides 10 through 22 and 25 through 38, which include duplicates). Both images of the labels of images incorporating the labels have been designated: "Union label" in this collection; they represent dozens of unions (many now defunct). The slide lecture and union label groups are mostly are black and white, although some tinted and colored slides also are present, and both date from ca. 1918-1921. They may also have originally been integrated into one slide show.

The remainder of the collection includes groups of lantern slides of text, cartoons, and photographs on various topics, including following: photographs of the famous Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike of 1912 that was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (slides 131 through 144); photographs of other news events of 1912 distributed by the commercial wire service company American Press Association (slides 145 through 150); reproductions of World War I-era political cartoons mainly from the New York Tribune newspaper (slides 1 through 4); a series of topical printed jokes titled "Fletcher's Weekly Screen Jazz" (most in this particular group relate to women) that were projected on screens as part of vaudeville shows, ca. World War I-era (slides 109 through 213); text of "comical sayings" from the New York Evening World newspaper ca. World War I (slides 214 through 218); a mix of photographs (some appear to be hand-colored) of ballots, candidates, and campaign literature for some of the New York City and New York State elections of 1921 (slides 183 through 193); and miscellaneous text captions from another (unidentified) lantern slide show, a photograph titled, "Bakery in a Living Room, Early 20th Century" (slides 5 through 9); a comic cartoon showing honeymooners at Niagra Falls, a cartoon about World War I (slide number 39) and another comical saying (slides 23 and 24).