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Research Guide to Anarchist Collections in the Tamiment LibraryThe Tamiment Library's collections include books, pamphlets, serials, manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, and vertical files related to anarchism and anarchists. In addition to letters of Emma Goldman, manuscripts of Alexander Berkman, photographs of Rudolf Rocker, and publications such as Why and Fraye Arbeter Shtime, researchers will find thousands of pamphlets in print and on microform, trial testimony, and numerous oral history interviews with 20th century anarchists. Following are selected resources available in the Tamiment Library, arranged by format. Descriptions for many of these materials may be found in BobCat, NYU's library catalog and in finding aids available at the library and/or online. See Locating Materials in the Tamiment Library for assistance.
*Archival Collections Archival Collections John Nicolas Beffel Papers, 1909-1970. 10.5 linear ft. John Beffel was a radical journalist, publicist and author who sometimes wrote articles under the names of Lancey Fitzgibbons, George Moresby, Mary Starland, Daniel Tower and others. The papers contain correspondence, chiefly relating to Beffel's organizational and publicity efforts in the defense of accused radicals in the Mooney-Billings case, Centralia, Wash.; a case involving members of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.); the Sacco-Vanzetti case; the Kentucky miners' defense in Harlan County (1931); the case of Athos Terzani; Beffel's involvement with the League for Mutual Aid, a social service agency for leftists and his writings and those of his correspondents; and manuscripts of writings by Beffel and others, including Bakunin's Political Philosophy: His Writings on Scientific Anarchism, edited by Beffel; several chapters from Rose Pesotta's Bread Upon the Waters (1944), edited by Beffel and Days of Our Lives (1958), both before editorial changes; unpublished autobiographies by Harry Kelly and Enness Ellae (I.W.W. member); published and unpublished articles and essays, most about labor and leftist personalities and issues; and stories, poems, reviews, and autobiographical pieces on Beffel's boyhood in Seneca, Illinois, and notes for a book. Correspondents include Richard Brazier, Ralph Chaplin, Daniel Eisenberg, Albino Felicani, Covington Hall, Harvey O'Connor, Rose Pesotta, Anna Roy, Vincent Starrett, Fred Thompson, Wilma Haywood Veleker, Albert Wehde, Art Young, and numerous family members. Alexander Berkman Papers, 1917-1919. 1 linear ft. Alexander Berkman (1870-1936) was a leading anarchist and author, who worked closely with Emma Goldman. The papers contain primarily court transcripts and legal documents, most prepared by Harry Weinberger, chief attorney for Berkman and Emma Goldman, reflecting Berkman's involvement with No Conscription League, his battle against extradition to California in connection with the Mooney-Billings bombing case, his and Emma Goldman's trial for violating the Draft Act by advising resistance, and their unsuccessful attempts to prevent deportation. Includes transcripts of speech (1917) by Leonard D. Abbot opposing conscription, and speech (1919) by Emma Goldman in honor of Kate Richards O'Hare; and portions of manuscripts of Berkman's What is Communist Anarchism (1929) and Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912). Murray Bookchin Papers, ca. 1950-2003. Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) was a leading anarchist-ecologist writer and activist. The papers contain unpublished and published writings, correspondence (mostly incoming), printed ephemera pertaining to the ecology movement and other topics, and videotapes (events, interviews, etc.). A preliminary inventory is available at the library. Bureau of Public Secrets Records, 1961-1978. 0.5 linear ft. The Bureau of Public Secrets was preceded by three organizations: The Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous, January-June 1970; 1044, July-November 1970; Contradiction, December 1970-September 1972. The CEM and 1044 were self-described neo-realist/quasi-situational organizations. Their publications were distributed almost exclusively in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contradiction was a situationist organization which aimed at criticizing existing leftist movements. Members of the organization were members or ex-members of the Situationist International. Their publications were distributed in the Bay Area, major U.S. and Canadian cities, and in Western Europe. The Bureau of Public Secrets was formed in the early part of 1973, and there is no documentation of its dissolve in this collection. Its key figure, who referred to himself as Special Investigator, was Ken Knabb; financing and distribution of Bureau material were done by him. Bureau publications consist of some reprints of writings by the Situationist International, though the Bureau maintained autonomy from this organization. The objective of the Bureau was to disseminate information on situationist politics and philosophy. The material in this collection documents the Bureau of Public Secrets and its pre-history, the Situationist International, American situationist, anarchist and libertarian activity and criticism, and is also significant in that it contains a critique of the New Left from activists of the same generation. The collection spans the years 1961-1978 with the bulk of the material spanning the years 1970-1976. It consists of flyers, periodicals, leaflets, pamphlets, and statements. Series I, Bureau of Public Secrets, contains a brief history and publications of the Bureau, articles and pamphlets by Ken Knabb, and three files containing materials produced by the Bureau's predecessor organizations. The second series, Situationist and Anarchist Material, consists chiefly of materials from other American situationist and anarchist organizations, and some material from England and the Netherlands. One file of note is that of the Amsterdam-based Help a Prisoner and Outlaw Torture Organizing Committee. Sam Dolgoff Papers, 1874-1991. 0.75 linear ft. Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990), anarchist author and editor, was born Sholem Dolgopolsky in Byelorussia and emigrated with his family to the United States prior to World War I. He joined the Young Peoples Socialist League in 1917 and, as an anarchist, the Industrial Workers of the World in 1922. In 1925 he moved to Chicago where he joined the Free Society Group and later met his companion Esther Miller. Returning to New York in the 1930s, he served on the editorial board of Spanish Revolution, and wrote for and helped edit several anarcho-syndicalist publications, often using the pseudonym Sam Weiner. After World War II, he became a leading figure in the Libertarian Book Club, documented the suppression of Cuban anarchists in the years following the 1959 Cuban revolution, and wrote or edited several books, including The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 (1974), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism (1972), The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective (1976), and Fragments: A Memoir (1986). The collection contains unpublished and published writings by Dolgoff and other anarchists, including Mikhail Bakunin, Max Nettlau, and Rudolf Rocker; "The Last Maximalist: An Interview with Klara Klebhanova," by Dolgoff; a small but rich collection of documents, ephemera and publications by Cuban and Cuban-exile anarchists protesting (in English and Spanish), and some similar materials by Latin American and Spanish anarchists; conference papers on self-management; and a thick file of published biographical sketches of anarchists and other radicals (half in French, half in Spanish). Much of the material concerns anarchism in Spain during the Spanish Republic and Spanish Civil War, including Frank Mintz's 1967 book-length unpublished thesis, "La Collectivisation en Espagne de 1936 a 1939," subsequently published in revised form as L'Autogestion dans l'Espagne Revolutionnaire (1970). French Anarchist Autograph Collection, 1874-1928. .5 linear ft. Twenty-five (25) signed letters, all but 4 in French, by European anarchists: Fernand Brouez, Gabriel De La Salle, Henry Dupont, Sebastien Faure, Jean Grave, Petr Kropotkin, Enrico Malatesta, Charles Malato, Louise Michel, David Nicole, Emile Pouget, Felix Pyat, Elisée Reclus, Henry Seymoure, Wilhelm Spohr, Laurent Tailhade, and S. Yanovsky. Emma Goldman Papers, 1924-1940. 2.5 linear feet. Emma Goldman (1869-1940), feminist, writer, and anarchist, was born in Russia in 1869. Refused admission to high school because she failed to conform to school rules, Goldman began working in 1882 in a factory in St. Petersburg. At the age of 17 to avoid her father's plans for her marriage, she fled to the United States, where she again worked in a factory. She joined the anarchist movement in about 1886 after the Chicago Haymarket Square bombing and conspiracy trial. In 1892 she began public speaking in defense of her lover, Alexander Berkman's attempted assassination of industrialist Henry Clay. She continued traveling and speaking about her ideas on revolution and sex. She published The Blast and later, until her deportation, Mother Earth. Goldman was deported in 1919 as a result of opposition to the war. She returned to Russia, but disillusioned with the new regime she left to travel and speak in Europe. She published My Disillusionment in Russia in 1924 and My Further Disillusionment in Russia in 1925. In 1924 she was permitted to make her home in England and married James Colton for the convenience of British citizenship. Alternately residing in England, Canada, and the South of France, she wrote her autobiography, Living my Life (1932). A tour through Germany convinced her of the threat of fascism. Her lectures on the topic gained her a 90 day visit to the United States in 1934. The Spanish Civil War provided her with a needed distraction from Alexander Berkman's suicide. She devoted herself to the loyalists and worked in England on behalf of the Spanish government. Early in 1939 she returned to Canada where she died May 13, 1940, retaining to the last her revolutionary ideals. Manuscripts, printed sources, correspondence, speeches, and notes. Includes correspondence with her publisher and personal correspondence dealing with her life and deportation and transcriptions of most of her significant letters, addresses, and articles (1908-1939), many from Mother Earth. Correspondents include Eugene V. Debs, Bertrand Russell, Rebecca West, Havelock Ellis, Israel Zangwill, Peter Kropotkin, Norman Thomas and Upton Sinclair. The Emma Goldman Papers - Microfilm Edition, 1980-1992 / edited by Candace Falk, Ronald J. Zboray and Daniel Cornford (Alexandria, Va.: Chadwyck-Healey, 1990-). The microfilm edition is accompanied by a printed volume, Emma Goldman: A Guide to Her Life and Documentary Sources / Candace Falk, editor; Stephen Cole, Associate editor; Sally Thomas, Assistant editor, which is available in the Tamiment Library's reference collection. Tamiment Library Call #: BTAM REF HX 843.7 .G65 E55 1995. McNamara Defense Committee Records, 1911. 0.5 linear ft. New York based committee formed in 1911 to rally support for John J. and James B. McNamara prior to their confessing to dynamiting the Los Angeles Times Building in 1910. The records contain minutes, appeals for support from labor and socialist groups, responses from these groups and financial records with lists of organizations making contributions. Much of the correspondence is that of the secretary Julius Gerber. Also two letters from Samuel Gompers. Max Nomad Papers, 1902-1967. 2.25 linear ft. Max Nomad (1881-1973), philosophic anarchist, author and educator, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Stephen Naft and Max Norton, was born in Buczacz, Poland. He was influenced by the thought of Waclaw Machajski, a heretical Polish radical. Prior to WWI he was a native of Austria and attended the University of Vienna. A Guggenheim Fellow in 1937, and for many years a lecturer in politics and history at New York University, the New School for Social Research and the Rand School, his books include Rebels and Renegades, Apostles of Revolution; Dreamers, Dynamiters and Demagogues; Political Heretics from Plato to Mao Tse-Tung; A Skeptic's Political Dictionary and Handbook for the Disenchanted; and Aspects of Revolution. The papers contain manuscripts, clippings, a scrapbook, published material, and course descriptions. The material concerns anarchism, communism, Latin America, world prominent radicals, and personal philosophy. There is also an unpublished biography of Stalin, notes on the Soviet Union and the Communist Party thereof, and essays. David Thoreau Weick Papers, 1921-1996. 6 linear ft. David Thoreau Wieck was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1921. His mother, Agnes Burns Wieck, wrote for the Illinois Miner and worked as an organizer for the Progressive Miners of America. In 1934 the Wiecks moved to New York City when his father Edward (a self-educated miner) was hired as a research associate for the Russell Sage Foundation's Industrial Studies Department. Wieck was briefly a member of the Young Communist League (c 1935-36), but became more sympathetic to anarchism. He graduated from Columbia University in 1941, then did post-graduate work, writing an unpublished study of the process of centralization in the United Mine Workers of America. Wieck registered as a conscientious objector, and in July 1943 began serving a three year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, for refusing induction into the army. Released from prison in 1946, he began a life-long partnership with Diva Agostinelli, the daughter of anarchist coal miners from Pennsylvania. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Wieck wrote for the anarchist publications Why?, Liberation, and Resistance. He collaborated with fellow conscientious objector Lowell Naeve on his prison memoir, A Field of Broken Stones (1950). Returning to Columbia University in 1956, he received a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1961 and taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, retiring in 1987. In 1992 Wieck published his biography of his mother, Woman from Spillertown: A Memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck. He died in 1997. The brief Biographical series includes clippings, memorabilia, and other personal materials. The Correspondence series includes: Paul Avrich, Giovanni Baldelli, George Benello, Clif Bennett, Murray Bookchin, Holley Cantine, Dave Dellinger, Eliot Deutsch, Daniel DeWees, Audrey Goodfriend, David Koven, Laurance Labadie, Ian and Meda Lind, Jackson Mac Low, Lowell Naeve, Ruth Perry, Dachine Rainer, Taylor Stoehr, Ralph Stone, Vera and Paul Williams. There are also some prison letters. The Diaries and Journals cover the years 1932-1993. Series IV, Writings, contains manuscripts, typescripts and notes, principally for unpublished works by Wieck and others. There are numerous philosophical writings, and an unpublished typescript by Wieck: "The United Mineworkers of America: A Study in Centralization." Isadore Wisotsky Autobiographical Typescript. Isidor Wisotsky (1895-1970) was born circa 1895 and immigrated from Latvia to the U.S. with his family when he was fourteen. He worked in the garment industry, became an anarchist, was involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, and became a friend of Norman Thomas. Contains typescript of Isidor Wisotsky's autobiography, Such a Life, in which he recounts his experiences as a Russian Jewish immigrant working in New York City's Lower East Side in the early twentieth century, his anarchist and Industrial Workers of the World activities, and his personal recollections of radical leaders. An introduction by Norman Thomas is included. BooksA wide spectrum of anarchist philosophers and thinkers is represented in the Tamiment Library's book collections. Authors include Mikhail Bakunin, Alexander Berkman, Murray Bookchin, Voltairine de Cleyre, William Godwin, Emma Goldman, Paul Goodman, Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin, Joseph Labadie, Errico Malatesta, William Owen, Albert Parsons, Lucy Parsons, Elisee Reclus, Rudolf Rocker, Max Stirner, Benjamin Tucker, Charlotte Wilson, and others. Search BobCat under author, title, or subject to find holdings. The library also holds several good reference books to assist with research on anarchism and anarchists. See, in particular, Anarchist Thinkers and Thought: An Annotated Bibliography, compiled and edited by Paul Nursey-Bray with the assistance of Jom Jose and Robyn Williams (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992). Tamiment Call #: Z 7164 .A52 N87 1992. Oral History CollectionsOral History of the American Left. Oral Histories, 1976-1984. ca. 750 interviews. (OH-02) The collection is arranged in six series: I. Radical Histories; II. Barrows Dunham Collection; III. Reynolds Hills Collection; IV. Interviews by Filmmakers; V. Aleine Austin; VI. Tamiment Institute. The collection consists of oral history interviews, some transcribed, dealing with the American Left. The interviews document radical activities principally from 1900 through 1960 and were conducted in many areas across the United States. Many of the interviews concentrate on immigrant groups. Women are also well represented. There are numerous interviews with anarchists. In the Filmmakers series, there are sets of interviews for two documentary films: "Anarchism in America," and "Free Voice of Labor" (about Jewish anarchists and their newspaper, also known as the Fraye Arbeter Shtime). Both films are available in the Avery Fisher Center, NYU. PamphletsRadical Pamphlets in American Collections. Part 1: Anarchist Pamphlets, 1830-1985 (microfiche). Nearly 2,000 pamphlets from the Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, and 360 pamphlets from the Anarchism Collection in Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Tamiment Call #: Microfiche 83. A Handlist of Titles is available in the Tamiment Library's reference collection, shelved at HN 90 .R3 R33. Radical Pamphlet Literature (microfilm). The collection of 8,762 pamphlets was assembled by the Rand School of Social Science, now New York University's Tamiment Library. The greater portion of the material appeared between 1900 and 1945. The focus of the collection is the pamphlets and leaflets issued by the Socialist Labor Party, Socialist Party, League for Industrial Democracy and the Communist Party, but there are also many pamphlets issued by anarchist groups, Trotskyists and labor organizations. Pamphlets are arranged alphabetically by author in a numbered sequence on 89 reels of microfilm and accompanied by a published guide. Approximately 2,000 of the pamphlets in the collection have been cataloged in BobCat and may be found by an author, title, or subject search. Researchers should consult the published guide to find uncatataloged pamphlets in the collection. Microfilm Call #s: Film R-1743 to Film R-1831. Microfilm Guide Call #: Tam Ref HN 90 .R3 T323. Twentieth Century Political Pamphlets (microfiche). A collection of approximately 4,000 political pamphlets from the collections of Cornell University, New York University's Tamiment Library, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the State University of New York at Albany. Accompanied by a guide listing pamphlets alphabetically by author. No subject indexing. Microfiche Collection Call #: Microfiche 82. Microfiche Guide Call #: Tam Ref Z 691 .T97 1994. Pamphlets in the Tamiment Library. In addition to the pamphlets included in the microfilm and microfiche sets mentioned above, the Tamiment Library holds a large collection of anarchist pamphlets, both cataloged and uncataloged. Cataloged pamphlets may be found in BobCat by an author, title, or subject search. Uncataloged pamphlets are currently being processed. Many of them are arranged by author in the library's vertical file collection. Researchers may consult an unpublished guide to the vertical file collection available at the reference desk in the Tamiment Library to see if an author is represented in the collection and then request the file with a call slip. PhotographsPacific Street Films Photographs Collection Ca. 119 mostly black and white photographs of anarchists and anarchist gatherings, from 1919 to 1980, collected by Pacific Street Films in the course of its production of two documentaries on anarchism, including "Free Voice of Labor--The Jewish Anarchists" (1980), and "Anarchism in America" (1982). Images include portraits of and group photographs with Rose Pesotta (labor organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union), Mollie Steimer (revolutionary and defendant in the historic 1919 Supreme Court free speech case Abrams vs. United States), Rudolph Rocker (Yiddishist and philosopher) and other anarchists, and of gatherings and celebrations hosted by the newspaper Fraye Arbeter Shtime, the Free Society Group of Chicago, the Mohegan Colony at Crompond, New York, and of students at the residential labor union training school, Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas. Roberta Bobba and Peter Martin Photographs Collection Thirty-two black and white images of Italian immigrant anarchist Carlo Tresca (1879-1943) and labor and radical Communist activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964) — comrades and one-time lovers — and their relatives and friends, in the period ca. 1918 to 1959. Tresca was active in many radical causes, including the Industrial Workers of the World and the anti-fascist movement in the United States. He was assassinated in 1943. Flynn, a key figure in early twentieth-century labor struggles, was an organizer and an orator and served as a leader in a number of labor and radical organizations, including the I.W.W. and the Communist Party of the United States. SerialsThe Tamiment Library holds a large collection of anarchism-related serials, published in the U.S. and abroad dating from the late nineteenth century to the present. More than 200 of these titles have been cataloged in BobCat, NYU's library catalog, to date. Consult the list of cataloged anarchist serials to see titles and publishers. Search BobCat, NYU's library catalog, to see which issues are held by the library. Please note that not all of the serials in the library's collections have been cataloged to date. Inquire at the Tamiment Library about titles that do not appear in BobCat to see if they are among the library's holdings. Spanish Civil War MaterialsAbraham Lincoln Brigade Archive The ALBA collections include serials, posters, flyers and ephemera produced by anarchists, both in Spain and abroad during the Spanish Civil War. See the inventory of ALBA Posters and list of ALBA Vertical Files for details. Consult archives staff for information on unprocessed material. The Spanish Refugee Aid (SRA) Records, 1941-2006 (Bulk 1953-1983).
Life-long leftist and self-proclaimed anarchist, Nancy Gardiner Macdonald (1910-1996), founded Spanish Refugee Aid in 1953, and remained at the organization’s helm until her retirement in 1983. Macdonald’s contact with refugees of the Spanish Civil War began when she initiated politics’ Packages Abroad (PPA), a project associated with the journal politics, of which her then husband, Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982), was editor. PPA sent packages of food and clothing, provided limited financial aid, and lent moral support to a handful of refugees throughout Europe in the years immediately after World War II. Following her tenure at PPA, Macdonald took a position with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and from there began to focus specifically on Spanish refugees. After a four-month-long trip to Europe in 1952 to assess needs of the refugees, Macdonald raised a committee to support non-communist Spanish refugees, most of whom were then living in France. Macdonald contended that non-communist Spanish refugees had been over looked by aid organizations, and that pro-communist refugees were supported by fellow communists. From its founding in 1953 until its dissolution in 2006, SRA handled the cases of nearly 6,000 Spanish refugees through its New York office and French offices in Paris, Montauban and Toulouse. The SRA Records contain case files, correspondence, administrative and financial records, and photographs. Materials are in English, French, Spanish, and Catalan. The bulk of the SRA Records consist of case files. These case files run the gamut of the briefest of files consisting of only a routine intake form to case files that contain correspondence and records spanning decades, and occasionally even generations within one family. The case files are a rich source of demographic data. Intake forms include information regarding the aid recipient’s date and place of birth, pre-Spanish Civil War occupation and home, as well as the refugee’s occupation and address in France, and the name of the person or agency who referred the refugee to SRA for assistance. Often included are names and birthdates of family members. Many of the intake forms also include a narrative. Some of these narratives simply state the refugee’s current tribulations. Other narratives detail everything from the refugee’s status in France to the refugee’s associations with the Republican Army or Government, role during the Spanish Civil War, stints in French internment camps, and life in German labor camps during World War II. The correspondence series are also significant. Nancy Macdonald was a prolific correspondent and the correspondence in this collection reflects both her concern for individual refugees, and the many networks with other aid organizations, political groups and individual donors that she developed to assist the refugees. Vertical FilesVertical files are small collections of ephemeral material arranged by subject and containing such items as leaflets, handbills, pamphlets, contracts, constitutions, manifestos, reports, and other documents. The Tamiment Library holds more than eighty-five vertical files relating to anarchism and anarchist organizations. See the Anarchism-related Vertical Files list for holdings. Selected Websites
Anarchist Librarians Web - "The revolution will be cataloged."
Updated 02/16/2009 |
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