This collection consists almost entirely of writings and speeches by Wilson Martindale Compton on the lumber and logging industry, on housing construction, and on forest management. Included are typescripts, some with extensive annotations, mimeographed reports, printed articles, and transcripts of Compton's testimony before various government agencies on unemployment in the lumber industry and similar topics. A number of the reports were prepared for the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, of which Compton was secretary and general manager from 1918 through 1944. Several memoranda and minutes of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association and of the American Forestry Association are interfiled with Compton's writings, which are arranged in chronological order.