The correspondence in this online collection comprises the personal and administrative communication of Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin relating to the Todd/Sonkin Migrant Workers Collection. The first group of letters, dated January 23, 1940, to November 13, 1941, contains correspondence between Todd and Sonkin and various Library of Congress officials, written prior to and during the California field project. This portion of the correspondence documents Todd's negotiations with the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) for support, administrative details of the project, instructions for field documentation, discussion of technical issues, notes on a proposed book by Charles L. Todd, and a discussion of the script for a radio program based on the collection.
The second group of letters, dated March 27, 1942, to September 14, 1944, contains correspondence written during World War II. This correspondence chronicles a number of subjects including the activities of Todd, Sonkin, and Alan Lomax during the war, development of programming based on the fieldwork, and potential documentation projects in army camps.
The third and final group of letters, dated August 23, 1985, to March 22, 1989, contains correspondence between Charles L. Todd and Gerald E. Parsons of the American Folklife Center. These letters discuss the collecting process, the collection itself, and Todd's donation of additional related materials.