Series is comprised of biographical materials on and memorabilia belonging to Carl and Helen Winter, and other members of their families, including Helen Winter's parents Hortense Allison and Alfred Wagenknecht. Includes memorial programs, obituaries, clippings, condolence cards, biographies, oral histories, and honors. Genealogical materials collected by Judith Allison Walters include collections of poetry written by Elmer Allison, and compilations of early family letters.

Series is comprised primarily of Carl and Helen Winter's correspondence during the period of their Smith Act trials from 1949 through the late-1950s, and Carl Winter's prison correspondence between 1951-1955. The series also includes Carl and Helen Winter's personal and professional correspondence from the 1960s-1990s.

Carl Winter's prison correspondence with wife Helen, daughter Michele, father Simon Weissberg, mother-in-law Hortense Allison, and attorneys George Crockett and John Abt, comprises a significant portion of the correspondence. The series also includes Helen Winter's correspondence with prison authorities on behalf of her husband, with her attorneys Ernest Goodman and John Abt, fellow Smith Act defendants, wives of CPUSA leaders, and the advocacy groups National Committee to Win Amnesty for the Smith Act Victims and Families of the Smith Act Victims. Other correspondents include Benjamin Davis, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Gus Hall, Meridel Le Sueur, and Henry Winston. Formats include letters, telegrams, cards, and drawings by Michele Winter.

Series documents the political activities of Carl and Helen Winter, and Hortense Allison, between the 1930s and 1990s, and is comprised of notes from meetings and conferences, drafts, articles, and speeches by Carl and Helen Winter; CPUSA memos, reports and ephemera; investigative files collected by the Detroit Police Department's "Red Squad" on Carl and Helen Winter between the mid-1940s and mid-1970s; teaching materials; memorabilia; and memorials for Detroit-area and CPUSA activists.

Materials were generated and collected during Carl Winter's work as Chairman of the Michigan Communist Party in the 1940s and 1950s, as a journalist and editor of The Worker from the 1960s-1980s, as a founder of the Midwest Labor Institute for Social Studies in the 1980s, and through his participation on the CPUSA's Political Bureau and Central Review Commission. Helen Winter's notes from conferences, convention materials, articles and speeches are primarily from her work as International Affairs Secretary of the CPUSA, member of the CPUSA's Political Bureau, founding member of the U.S. Peace Council, and proprietor of Global Books.

Materials related to Carl and Helen Winter's arrests and trials under the Smith Act can be found in the Smith Act Trials and Defense Work series.

Series is comprised of legal documents, clippings, ephemera, writings, notes, and speeches generated and collected between the late-1940s and late-1950s primarily as a result of or related to Carl and Helen Winter's arrests and trials for violating the Smith Act, and Carl Winter's imprisonment. Legal documents include texts of opinions and petitions from Carl Winter's trial, Dennis vs. the United States, in Foley Square, New York, and Helen Winter's trial with five other leading members of Michigan's Communist Party, Saul Wellman et. al. vs. the United States of America, between 1953-1954. Includes ephemera from groups opposed to the Smith Act prosecutions including the Civil Rights Congress, Families of the Smith Act Victims, National Association to Win Amnesty for the Smith Act Victims, and the CPUSA.

Also includes Helen Winter's steno books from her trial and typescript of her closing remarks; notebooks kept by Carl Winter in prison; a petition by Benjamin Davis against segregation in the prisons; poems, including "A Letter to Carl"; Carl Winter's speech "12 x 12 Million"; and an apparently unpublished manuscript by Minnesota writer and activist Meridel Le Sueur entitled "Double Jeopardy" on the plight of families of Smith Act defendants. A comprehensive collection of clippings of press coverage from Detroit's tabloid press of Helen Winter's trial comprises a significant part of the series.