The Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast records document the activities of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast (MFPC), more commonly known as the Maritime Federation of the Pacific (MFP), an organization representing the interests of longshoremen, seamen, ship cooks and stewards, other various maritime occupations, agricultural and cannery workers in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The collection consists of the organizational records of the MFP, including material related to conventions and conferences, the Executive Board, constitutions, officers, District and Subdistrict Councils, subject files, financial records, and records pertaining to the Federation's publication Voice of the Federation. Of note is the correspondence from Tom Mooney, whose decades-long imprisonment for a bombing that occurred during a military preparedness parade in 1916 became a labor cause célèbre until his release in 1939; files relating to the 1936 Pacific Coast Maritime Strike that resulted from employer opposition to the implementation of the agreement reached after the historic 1934 strike; subject files on the King, Ramsay, Conner shipboard murder trial; material on the Spanish Civil War, and correspondence from J.B. McNamara, imprisoned for the 1911 Los Angeles Timesbombing.

The collection also contains material related to organizations supported by the MFP, including the Bay Area Committee to Aid Agricultural Workers formed by John Steinbeck; the Council of Marine Crafts of America; the Marysville Defense Committee, the committee formed to defend fruit pickers in the 1939 strike violently repressed by the Associated Farmers; and the Modesto Defense Committee, the committee formed to defend strikers jailed on dynamite charges during the Pacific Coast Tanker Strike against Standard Oil in 1935. Materials include correspondence, minutes, clippings, telegrams, circular letters, teletypes, reports, and financial and legal material.

Documentation of Filipino workers can be found in the agricultural, canning and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) locals, as well as reporting in the Voiceand support committee files for the Marysville workers. The Secretary Treasurer’s files also contains material relating to Women’s Auxiliaries. The issues of civil liberties and civil rights can be found in the files of Secretary Treasurer Revels Cayton.