After working as a junk dealer for several years, he founded the Barnett Woolen Mills around 1913. The business papers describe the company's 1938 bankruptcy and subsequent reorganization, but provide few details regarding the business' size or annual production. There are no access restrictions on the materials, and the collection is open to all members of the public in accordance with state law. The collection consists of family and business records documenting nearly three generations of a Jewish family's life in Milwaukee, from 1906 to 1971. Much of the correspondence between Barnett and Schenker, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, is concerned with Schenker's efforts to immigrate to the United States.
Brief translations accompany the letters written in Yiddish.
Genealogical information can be found in letters regarding Israel and Sarah's efforts to secure derivative citizenship paper, clippings and family mementoes, and the file dealing with plans for the Israel Barnetts' 50th wedding anniversary in 1958. A scrapbook and clippings dealing with Jewish religious affairs is also included in this series. The Business records series contains legal documents of the woolen mill's 1938 reorganization including an appraisal and property inventory. The correspondence of the mill and the Muskego Company are concerned with financial matters, letters to and from other mills and textile manufacturers, company employees and sales representatives. The mill's efforts to sell saddle blankets to cowboys are also described through correspondence.