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Collections Overview
Library CollectionsThe Tamiment Library has a non-circulating collection of more than 75,000 books focusing on the history of labor, politics, political thought, literature and the arts. Items may be found in BobCat, NYU's library catalog. The library collections also include more than 15,000 non-current serial titles such as labor union convention proceedings, union journals, strike bulletins, underground newspapers, internal bulletins of radical organizations, and scholarly journals in labor and radical history. Holdings are particularly strong in titles indexed by the Alternative Press Index, Left Index, and Work-Related Abstracts. See the Serials Research Guide for more information. The Library's printed ephemera collections consist of ca. one million items such as broadsides, leaflets, manifestoes, and reports generated by a wide spectrum of labor and left-wing organizations. Collection strengths include the history or labor, trade unionism, radical politics, the struggle for civil liberties, civil rights, and women's history. Consult the Printed Ephemera Research Guide for additional information. Pamphlets in the Tamiment Library's collections include thousands of titles in print and on microform. Subject coverage spans the role of women in socialism and in the labor force, civil rights, labor union strikes, the Sacco-Vanzetti case, trade unionism, anti-Semitism, the Scottsboro case, the McCarthy Era, anarchism, communism, socialism, radicalism, and many other topics. The pamphlets are arranged in either distinct thematic collections or in the general pamphlet collection, in print or on microform. See the Pamphlet Collections Research Guide for full details. Archival Collections
The Tamiment Library contains some of the most important collections in the United States relating to labor and social history [labor collections], the history of the Left, the place of the worker in American society, the evolution of labor law, women's history, immigrant history, and much more. Tamiment preserves the history of working-class New York: its neighborhood associations, fraternal and ethnic societies, political organizations, and the unions that shaped the social and economic structure of the City. The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives is the designated repository for the records of the New York City Central Labor Council, its member unions and affiliated organizations. Tamiment/Wagner holds more than 400 manuscript collections, a total of more than 15,000 feet of original papers and records. Detailed guides and inventories for many of these collections are available online. Browse the collections/finding aids list online or search the library's finding aids. Some archival holdings have been microfilmed and may be borrowed through inter-library loan. Please note that some collections are stored offsite. If the designation "(offsite)" or "(offsite-cs) appears after a collection in the Collections List, it is stored offsite and boxes must be requested in advance of your research visit. Political CollectionsSocialism: The records of the Socialist Party are one of Tamiment's core collections. The Library's Socialist collections have a New York focus but include important record groups that are national in scope. Some of the more significant collections are: early local Socialist Party and predecessor organization records, the Rand School of Social Science, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, the New York Bureau of Legal Advice (precursor to the ACLU), papers of Eugene V. Debs, congressman Meyer London, Harry Laidler, William Mailly, and James Oneal, Rose Pastor Stokes, cartoonist Art Young, Michael Harrington, and Democratic Socialists of America. Communism: Tamiment's archival collections document the activities of the Communist Party of the United States, its leaders, cadre, rank and file activists, and fellow travelers (including figures from labor and electoral politics, education, the arts and publishing). Some of the more notable collections are: New York City Councilman Peter V. Cacchione, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, artist Hugo Gellert, Labor Research Association, National Council on American Soviet Friendship, autobiographical manuscripts by Party leaders rank and file activists. In 2006 Communist Party of the United States donated its archives and the Library of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies to the Tamiment Library in order to make its history accessible to students, scholars, and activists. CPUSA: Ninety Years of History, a Tamiment Library exhibit curated by Peter M. Filardo and Michael Nash, containing highlights of the recent acquisition may be viewed on Flickr. The Tamiment Library is also the repository for several related and popular front organizations, as well as the records describing many of the government investigations and prosecutions of the Communist Party and its members. Tamiment has acquired microform collections documenting the history of Communism: the Comintern Archives: Materials of Congresses and Plenums of the ECCI, Files of the Communist Party of USA (CPUSA) in the Comintern Archives, and the papers of Earl Browder. Related collections describe the history of Trotskyism and Socialist Workers Party, Anarchism, New Left, Unaffiliated Left Organizations, and the Women's Movement, and labor and left summer camps. Finding Archival CollectionsBrowse the Tamiment Library's Collections List online to identify archival collections and link to finding aids and collection descriptions where available. Search finding aids to identify archival archival collections in the Tamiment Library or search Tamiment's finding aids together with the finding aids of Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University Archives, and New-York Historical Society by choosing Search All Finding Aids. Records for processed and cataloged archival collections may be found in BobCat, New York University's on-line public access catalog. Please contact Gail Malmgreen for information about the Archives and Manuscript Collections (Gail.Malmgreen@nyu.edu; 212-998-2636) Tamiment Library Web Archive ProjectThe Tamiment Library is now part of a consortium led by the California Digital Library and funded by the Library of Congress’ National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program that is developing the curatorial and technical tools to preserve at-risk political websites. Read more about the project. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) collection, formerly located at Brandeis University, has been acquired by the Tamiment Library. The collection is the largest and most important resource for the study of the participation of American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. It includes the papers of more than 200 volunteers, oral histories, films, photographs, posters, and selections of the microfilmed records of the International Brigades that were taken to the Soviet Union after the Spanish Civil War.
Non-Print CollectionsPhotographs, film, videotapes, posters and memorabilia provide a rich visual record of the history of labor and radical politics. Much of this visual material doesn't just supplement information in manuscript collections and papers--it can also provide evidence that is not available in written sources. Photographs: Tamiment has more than 500,000 photographs documenting a wide range of subjects including: union organizing, the workplace, the shop floor, the changing nature of work, strikes, rallies, demonstrations, progressive political campaigns, socialists, communists, anarchists, and members of other leftist organizations. They also depict working class resorts, summer camps, New York City street scenes and architecture. Photographs from the collection are often used in films, television programs, books, exhibits, and websites. They have also been displayed at both union gatherings and academic conferences. Graphic Materials: The Library has a poster and broadside collection of more than 2,000 items, a number of original paintings and drawings, several thousand original pen and ink political cartoons, and more than 6,000 political buttons, as well as t-shirts, picket signs, banners, bumper stickers and other artifacts. Moving Images: About 100 video documentaries and feature films dealing with labor history and radical politics have been acquired through funding by the Jacob Blaufarb Endowment and the New York State Council on the Arts, as well as by direct donation. Videotapes cannot be borrowed but may be viewed at the Avery Fisher Center (Bobst Library, 2nd floor). A catalogue of these titles may be consulted at the Library. Among these works are two videos produced by Tamiment Library itself, drawing from two of its most important collections: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: The Rebel Girl and They Were Not Silent: The Jewish Labor Movement and the Holocaust. The Library also holds more than 80 hours of archival film footage (including out-takes and unedited footage) from its general Tamiment/Wagner collections, which may be consulted for research purposes, but is not at present available for licensing. In addition the Library holds 400 hours of film in its Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and Communications Workers of America collections, a small portion of which is available for research, but not for licensing. Finding Non-print CollectionsBrowse the Tamiment Library's Collections List online to identify non-print collections and link to finding aids and collection descriptions where available. Search finding aids to identify non-print collections in the Tamiment Library or search Tamiment's finding aids together with the finding aids of Fales Library & Special Collections, New York University Archives, and New-York Historical Society by choosing Search All Finding Aids Records for processed and cataloged non-print collections may be found in BobCat, New York University's on-line public access catalog. Please contact Erika Gottfried (erika.gottfried@nyu.edu; 212-998-2635) for information about the non-print collections. Updated 02/19/2010 |
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