The Margaret M. Fitzgerald papers document her work as a social reformer, suffragist, and retail business owner. The papers contain business memos and minutes, correspondence, diaries, financial records, newspaper clippings, school notes, and speeches.

Fitzgerald’s papers begin at the turn of the century with her middle school and college course notes, including a Boston College evening course in philosophy. Her earliest work documents are comprised of minutes and notes from Retail Store Wage Board meetings from 1915 to 1917, as well as memos from Filene’s Department Store from 1918. Her service on the Minimum Wage Commission is further described in her correspondence and collected newspaper clippings. In addition to Wage Commission topics, her correspondence includes both personal letters and materials related to her service on the Catholic and Professional Business Guild in the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally there are speeches from her years working for the National Catholic Community Service in the early 1940s. Fitzgerald’s diaries cover the later years of her professional life and the beginning of her retirement, spanning 1940-1974.

Materials about Fitzgerald include a newspaper clipping and a church newsletter with biographic profiles, as well as a speech given by Fitzgerald’s grandniece, Sue Wachtel.