Tamiment Library

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Education and Student Movements, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) is a political organization headed by Lyndon LaRouche. Originally a caucus within the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) called the Labor Committee, LaRouche and his followers were purged from SDS in 1968 for supporting the Albert Shankar led New York Teachers Strike. The NCLC later went on to attack those on the left in what is known as "Operation Mop Up" as well as to form their own rival organizations, including the National Unemployed and Welfare Rights Organization and the Revolutionary Youth Movement. The NCLC also founded the U.S. Labor Party which supported LaRouche's candidacy for U.S. President in 1976.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was originally conceived in 1935 within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) as the Committee for Industrial Organization. After formalizing a break with the AFL, stemming from disagreements in how to organize industrial workers, the CIO established itself an independent federation in 1938. John L. Lewis was an influential force and served as president until 1940, when Philip Murray of the United Steelworkers of America succeeded him. The first unions chartered by the CIO were the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, the United Mine Workers of America, and the United Steelworkers of America. In 1955, the AFL, under the leadership of George Meany, merged with the CIO, led by Walter Reuther. As of 2009, the AFL-CIO represented over 11 million members.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Tamiment Library Clippings Scrapbooks were compiled by the staff of the Meyer London Memorial Library of the Rand School of Social Science (1906-1956), the New York City workers education institution associated with the Socialist Party of the United States of America. The Eugene V. Debs scrapbooks were compiled by Debs and his brother Theodore, who served as his brother’s secretary and office manage. Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) was a railroad labor organizer and later a leader of the Socialist Party, and was its candidate for U.S. president (1900-1912 and 1920), the last time while imprisoned for his opposition to U.S. entry into World War I.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, trade unions and other organizations, collecting by staff, and through exchanges with other special library collections via the Collectors’ Network (which was organized by Russell Benedict at the University of Nevada in the 1970s and promoted through his newsletter Top Secret). Collecting is ongoing as materials continue to be added to this collection.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Alternative Mass Media, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program (Library of Congress) and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States, with a particular focus on New York City.

The Tamiment Library, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of brief manuscript files over the course of its early existence. The files pertain largely to individuals, and also to organizations, events and topics, and correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts, as well as some items of printed ephemera. While most of the individuals and organizations were active in the United States, there are also files for a number of prominent European and other foreign figures and organizations represented.

Tamiment Library (Labor and the Left) Web Archive: Environmentalism / Green Movement Web Archive was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The collection consists of a wide range of periodicals published in Spain and abroad during the Spanish Civil War and in later years. Although the provenance of many items is unknown, it is clear that some were separated from manuscript collections that form part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives at the Tamiment Library, NYU; others may have been brought from Spain as souvenirs by Lincoln Brigade members; and some purchased from dealers or given to archives over the years by collectors and others. While some were produced in Spain during the war years and relate directly to the conflict, others may contain only an article or articles on the War and reactions to it around the world. Individual publications were produced by many publishers and political entities, including an array of political and trade-union organizations. The contents of this collection may change over time, as new donations are made.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Feminism & Women's Movements, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program (Library of Congress) and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States, with a particular focus on New York City.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed in 1890 with the merger of the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers. A leader in civil rights, the UMWA barred discrimination based on race, religion or national origin in its first constitution. The UMWA was a member of the American Federation of Labor and a driving force in the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. John L. Lewis served as president from 1920-1960. The UMWA, under his charge, created the Welfare and Retirement Fund in contract with the United States government, which permanently changed the way that health care is delivered to workers in the coal industry. In 1989, members of the UMWA in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky went on strike against the Pittston Coal Company, the strike lasted for several months and was greeted with wide-ranging community and union support. Today, the UMWA continues to fight for safe working conditions, good wages, benefits and fair representation.

The United Telegraph Workers was known until 1968 as the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America. Founded in convention in New York City in 1903, the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America emerged from a series of struggles between smaller unions of private and postal telegraph workers. At the time, over one hundred delegates represented seventy-five locals from across the country. During World War II and throughout much of its history, the union had been pitted against a single dominant employer, ...

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Jewish American Left, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Newspaper Guild, founded by Heywood Broun in 1933 as the American Newspaper Guild, was first conceived primarily as a craft union for editorial staff. After gaining convention approval for a broader base, the structure of the Guild changed considerably. It grew to have more of an industrial trade union structure, organizing not only reporters and editorial staff, but workers in all areas of print production, including advertising, accounting, and circulation. In the 1970s, the Guild dropped the "American" and simply became the Newspaper Guild and in 1995, merged with the Communication Workers of America. As of 2009, the Newspaper Guild had over 34,000 members in the United States and Canada.

Historically, and today, the Left has played a leading role in peace activism. This has included opposition to wars based on their economic, imperial, racial, and other motivations, opposition to war as inconsistent with social and economic justice, and to war and violence as inherently dehumanizing. Since the development of nuclear weapons, the Left has also opposed their proliferation and rationales for their use.

The United Automobile Workers of America (UAW) was founded in 1935, and over the next few years changed its affiliation from the American Federation of Labor to that of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1937, the UAW gained recognition from the General Motors Corporation with its use of the dramatic sit-down strike, employed as both a bargaining tool and an organizing method. Membership skyrocketed following these heroic organizing campaigns and recognition was gained from the major auto manufacturing companies. In 1941, the UAW changed its name to the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, and later in 1962, it changed the "Aircraft" to "Aerospace", though today the union is still familiarly known as the UAW. Walter Reuther served as president from 1946 until 1970 when he and his wife died tragically in an airplane crash. As of 2009, the UAW had roughly 513,000 active members and more than 575,000 retired members in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. There were more than 800 local unions within the UAW with over 3,100 contracts.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Labor unions and Organizations (U.S.), was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Anarchism, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) was formed in 1903 by the merger of several regional locals of teamsters, individuals who drove teams of animals, such as oxen or horses, and wagons. The union today represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors as is evident by the various locals included in the collection, such as Ice Cream Drivers and Employees, Local 757 and Armored Car Chauffeurs and Guards, Local 820. Currently, known by the name International Brotherhood of Teamsters, IBT was also briefly known as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Stablemen and Helpers of America and later and more popularly, as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. The collection consists mainly of materials from the latter.

The Tamiment Library, a special collection documenting the history of United States labor, radicalism, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of documents concerning protests against the Vietnam War from numerous sources during the early 21st century.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Economic and Social Justice, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a minor left-leaning political party. The PFP was founded in June of 1967, though the first national convention was convened in the summer of 1968. It was there in Ann Arbor, Michigan that the group nominated Black Power leader Eldridge Cleaver as their candidate for U.S. President. The PFP arose in opposition to the Vietnam War and in support of civil rights, women's equality and rights for workers. The PFP is still active today, primarily in California, nominating Ralph Nader for president in 2008.

The United Federation of Teachers represents most of the public school teachers and associated personnel in New York City. It was formed in 1960 as a result of a merger between the Teachers Guild and the High School Teachers Association and, in December of 1961, became the collective bargaining organization for all New York City teachers. It is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO and the Central Labor Council. It is also the largest member of New York State United Teachers, which is affililated with the National Educational Association and Education International.

The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) was formed in 1976 when the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) and the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA) merged. The ACWA was formed in 1914 as a break away union from the United Garment Workers. Sydney Hillman was an influential leader of the Union and served as president for thirty years. The TWUA was formed out of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1939 and was established largely as a project of the CIO to organize southern textile workers. In 1995, the ACTWU joined with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile employees, also known as UNITE. UNITE went on to merge with the Hotel Employees and Hospital Employees Union, to form UNITE HERE in 2004.

The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) was founded out of the "Great Postal Strike of 1970", in which thousands of postal employees struck in New York City and across the country successfully winning an increase in wages and collective bargaining power through the Postal Reorganization Act. The Union was formed as a merger of five postal unions. Following founding, the APWU jointly bargained with several other postal unions around the country an agreement with the United States Postal Service. ...

In 1936, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, named Philip Murray chairman of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). The Committee was charged with leading an organizing drive of the entire steel industry. Out of the SWOC, the United Steelworkers of America was formed, holding its founding convention in 1942. Murray was elected as the first president and served until his death in 1952. Since its founding, various unions have merged with the United Steelworkers, ...

The New American Movement (NAM), a self-identified "new type" of socialist organization, held its founding convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1972. Established largely by veterans of the New Left, NAM wanted to move beyond the activism of the 1960s and rejected a vanguard approach to organizing. The group was opposed to the Vietnam War and called for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon. NAM's overarching goal was to create a democratic socialist society, characterized by racial, sexual and economic equality. In 1982, the organization joined with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic Socialists of America.

The Labour Party of Great Britain formed around the turn of the 20th century in response to the need to represent the interests and needs of working-class people. The party grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century seeking these workers' representation. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress and the Independent Labour Party (founded 1893) established the Labour Representation Committee, which took the name Labour Party in 1906. The Labour party came ...

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, was originally the library of the Rand School of Social Science, a workers school established in 1906 in New York City. This artificial collection of brief manuscript files was accumulated over the years, and additions are anticipated. However, when more substantial brief manuscript files are received, they are now treated as individual collections, and will not be added to the Manuscript Files Collection.

The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a minor left-leaning political party. The PFP was founded in June of 1967, though the first national convention was convened in the summer of 1968. It was there in Ann Arbor, Michigan that the group nominated Black Power leader Eldridge Cleaver as their candidate for U.S. President. The PFP arose in opposition to the Vietnam War and in support of civil rights, women's equality and rights for workers. The PFP is still active today, primarily in California, nominating ...

The League for Industrial Democracy, also known as the LID, was founded in 1905 by such notables as Norman Thomas, Jack London and Clarence Darrow. The group, originally named the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, focused its attention primarily on educating college students about socialism and the labor movement. In 1921, the organization took on its current name. Still addressing students, the LID was home to what became the Students for a Democratic Society, then known as the Student League for Industrial Democracy. Taking a stance on communism became a divisive issue between the two groups. The organizations diverged following the Students for a Democratic Society's convention in Port Huron, Michigan in 1960. The LID continued to produce lecture and discussion guides as well as host conferences and study commissions to achieve their goal of increasing democracy in the economic, political, and cultural life. The organization also published numerous pamphlets on socialism, labor issues, totalitarianism and democracy.

The essential role of political posters in propaganda, recruitment, and sustaining morale has been well-documented in numerous books, exhibitions and catalogs, as have their striking graphic qualities and historical significance. They have been published by numerous parties, labor unions and federations, other organizations, entities, and individuals representing the entire spectrum of political affiliations and philosophies. Left and progressive organizations and artists, perhaps because the medium represents a chance to bypass the usual modes of communication and communicate outside of mainstream politics and power, have been particularly prolific in the production of posters.

In 1936, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, named Philip Murray chairman of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). The Committee was charged with leading an organizing drive of the entire steel industry. Out of the SWOC, the United Steelworkers of America was formed, holding its founding convention in 1942. Murray was elected as the first president and served until his death in 1952. Since its founding, various unions have merged with the United Steelworkers, most recently, in 2005, the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) International Union. This merger created the largest industrial union in North America, a union not only of steelworkers but also workers in industries such as manufacturing, health care, pharmaceuticals, mining, energy and utilities. As of 2009, the United Steelworkers of American had over 850,000 active members in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Communism, Socialism, Trotskyism, along with other topically based web archives relating to labor and the left, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, as well as the history of labor and the left, principally in the United States, with a special concentration on New York City.

The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, also known as the UE, was formed in 1936. After being rejected a charter by the American Federation of Labor, it became the first union chartered under the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The UE saw a growth in membership during the war years to more than 300,000 members. In 1949, because of anti-communist campaigns, the UE left the CIO. Subsequently, the CIO expelled the UE along with ten other unions from its ranks. The CIO went on to establish the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) as a rival union. The UE tried to rebuild its membership throughout the 1960s and 1970s, however this was difficult and continued to be as membership was hit hard by closing plants in the 1980s. As of 2009, the UE continues to practice what it refers to "rank and file unionism" and remains unaffiliated with the AFL-CIO.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, trade unions and other organizations, and through exchanges with other special library collections via the Collectors’ Network, which was organized by Russell Benedict at the University of Nevada in the 1970s and promoted through his newsletter Top Secret. Ongoing collecting by staff is another significant means for acquiring printed ephemera for the collection.

The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) was founded out of the "Great Postal Strike of 1970", in which thousands of postal employees struck in New York City and across the country successfully winning an increase in wages and collective bargaining power through the Postal Reorganization Act. The Union was formed as a merger of five postal unions. Following founding, the APWU jointly bargained with several other postal unions around the country an agreement with the United States Postal Service. In 1994, the APWU began bargaining with the USPS on its own, and has an agreement approved by members running through 2010.

This is an expanding artificial collection originally known as the Tamiment Library / Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives General Photograph Collection. Apart from the material transferred to the Library’s vertical files, the collection holds photographic images that complement, but are not part of or do not fit into the scope of the Library’s other holdings.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) was formed in 1903 by the merger of several regional locals of teamsters, individuals who drove teams of animals, such as oxen or horses, and wagons. The union today represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors as is evident by the various locals included in the collection, such as Ice Cream Drivers and Employees, Local 757 and Armored Car Chauffeurs and Guards, Local 820. Currently, ...

The Socialistic Labor Party, originally organized as the Workingmen's Party in 1876, was founded in 1877. The name was changed to Socliast Labor Party (SLP) in 1890. The official publisher of the Party was the New York Labor News Company, and many pamphlets from publisher exist in this collection as well as in the Tamiment cataloged books and pamphlets collections. Two histories of the organization are included in the collection. The SLP was a marxist organization and still exists today. In the late 1800s the Party attempted to affiliate with union and labor groups to create one large organization and then tried to move members away from the American Federation of Labor, which failed. Those who were involved in this movement later were part of the founding of Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). Daniel DeLeon was a major figure in the party. Pamphlets by and about him are part of the colelction and can also be found in the Tamiment cataloged books and pamphlets collections.

Tamiment Library (Labor and the Left) Web Archive: Peace Movements Web Archive was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded in Ohio in 1886, its precursor was known as the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada. Samuel Gompers was elected the first president. One of the first campaigns of the AFL was to fight nationally for the 8-hour day, a campaign that spread across the US and into Europe. Initially, organizing unions into the Federation was difficult, but steadily membership began to grow as the benefits of amalgamation became evident. The AFL organized workers more traditionally along craft lines, consequently, due to a division in strategy of organizing all workers in an industry, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed. The two merged in 1955 forming the AFL-CIO.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed in 1890 with the merger of the Knights of Labor Trade Assembly No. 135 and the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers. A leader in civil rights, the UMWA barred discrimination based on race, religion or national origin in its first constitution. The UMWA was a member of the American Federation of Labor and a driving force in the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. John L. Lewis served as president from 1920-1960. The ...

The United Telegraph Workers was known until 1968 as the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America. Founded in convention in New York City in 1903, the Commercial Telegraphers' Union of America emerged from a series of struggles between smaller unions of private and postal telegraph workers. At the time, over one hundred delegates represented seventy-five locals from across the country. During World War II and throughout much of its history, the union had been pitted against a single dominant employer, Western Union. Due to technological change in the industry and charged anti-union efforts, the Commercial Telegrapher's Union of America declined in numbers after World War II. In 1986, the 5,800 member United Telegraph Workers merged with the Communications Workers of America.

Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Housing was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Prisoners Rights (U.S.), was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The Transport Workers Union of America came into existence in 1934 as a result of organizing efforts by a core group of workers on New York's Interborough Rapid Transit system, with assistance from Communist Party activists. After slow gains among NYC subway and bus workers and a brief period of affiliation with the International Association of Machinists, the union affiliated with the CIO in 1937 and was granted a broad jurisdiction over all categories of transport workers. Under the dynamic leadership of President Michael J. Quill and a group of organizers who shared his Irish nationalist background and radical outlook, the union soon grew to more than 40,000 members and began organizing nationwide. The largest and most powerful locals of the TWU have been Local 100 (NYC) and Local 234 (Philadelphia), but by the post-World War II period the TWU also had a substantial presence in Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, New Orleans, Omaha, and other cities and towns across the nation.

The National Maritime Union of America, which represented workers in the merchant marine, was formed in 1937, as a split from the International Seafarer's Union, which was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). At it's first convention in 1937, the NMU joined the Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO). A crucial role in its formation was played by former members of the Communist-led Marine Workers Industrial Union. Among the notable reforms achieved by the union's Communist-dominated leadership was "checkerboarding," the side-by-side racial integration of sailors' sleeping quarters. The union was led by Joseph Curran, who served for as NMU president until 1981, at which time it was discovered he was to receive a lump sum payment of his pension of $2 million. He eventually agreed to take monthly payments in lieu of the lump sum. During World War II, the alliance of Communists and non-communists in the union was weakened by charges that the Communists, in their desire to maximize productivity to aid the Soviet Union, did not aggressively defend sailors' interests. The Cold War and organized labor's stance thereto exacerbated the ideological divide, and in 1948, the NMU's Communist leadership and its allies were defeated in union elections, then expelled, and subsequently deprived of their sailor's papers by the U.S. Coast Guard. The union was weakened by the loss of these militant members, the rise of foreign-based flag of convenience shipping companies (which drastically reduced NMU membership from its WWII high of over 80,000 members), and internal corruption. Despite this, in 1950, the NMU's Welfare plan was established, providing seamen with health, accident and life insurance benefits. In 1954 a pension component was added. Curran's successor, Shannon Wall, was not well- received my a strong minority of the union, led by James Morrissey, who had run against Wall in previous elections and been attacked and beaten outside the union headquarters in 1966. The Union had members in Panama, the Great Lakes, as well as the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States. In 2001, the NMU merged with the Seafarers International Union of North America, which originally represented West Coast merchant mariners.

The AFL-CIO was formed when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) merged in 1955. The AFL was formed in 1886 and was led by Samuel Gompers as a more traditional union that organized workers along craft lines. The CIO, initially a committee within the AFL called the Committee for Industrial Organization, broke away from the AFL in the late 1930s after disputes in how to organize all the workers of one industry into the same union. George Meany, the president of the AFL, was elected to serve as the first president of the newly merged AFL-CIO. He was succeeded by Lane Kirkland in 1979. As a voluntary federation of international labor unions, the AFL-CIO represents nearly all unionized employees in the United States and Canada. The AFL-CIO lobbies on behalf of organized labor and mediates disputes between member unions. It holds quadrennial conventions and member unions are proportionately represented with delegates who attend and vote. John Sweeney was elected as president in 1995, this was the AFL-CIO's first contested election. When Sweeney retired in 2009, Richard Trumka, of the United Mine Workers of America was elected president.

The Bakery and Confectionery Workers' International Union of America, a pioneer of the North American labor movement, was organized in 1886. In 1969, it united with the American Bakery and Confectionery Workers' International Union. Again, in 1978, the Bakery and Confectionery Workers' International Union of America saw that it had common goals with the Tobacco Workers International Union, and so the two merged, creating the Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers International Union. As another merger occurred in 1999 with the American Federation of Grain Millers, the union is known today as the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union. As of 2009, the Union represented more than 120,000 workers in both Canada and the United States and its dedication remains strong in bringing economic and social justice to all workers in its jurisdiction.

NABET was founded in 1934 as the Association of Technical Employees (ATE). The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) formed the ATE as a company union, in an effort to prevent their employees from being organized by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The ATE would not stay under NBC control for long. It began an energetic organizing campaign, and in 1940 changed its name to the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians (NABET).During this period, NBC owned ...

The Tamiment Library, New York University, is a special collection documenting the history of United States labor, anarchism, communism, socialism, the New Left and other radicalism, and progressive social action. It began life as the library of the Rand School of Social Science (established in 1906), a workers education institution with ties to the socialist and labor movements. The Rand School Library was renamed the Meyer London Memorial Library in 1926. After the Rand School closed in 1956, the Meyer London Memorial Library was maintained with a subsidy from the Tamiment Institute until it was given to New York University in 1963.

The United States Subversive Activities Control Board was created in 1950 in conjunction with enactment of the Internal Security Act of 1950. This act, known as the McCarran Act after its author Senator Pat McCarran, did not outlaw the Communist Party but sought to secure its control through regulation. It required registration with the United States government of domestic "communist-action organizations" (defined as organizations substantially under the control of "the world-wide communist movement") and of domestic "communist-front organizations" (defined as organizations substantially under the control of "communist-action organizations"). The Attorney General might petition the Subversive Activities Control Board to order the registration of specific organizations under one or the other of these rubrics. The Board, made up of five members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, was in turn empowered to hold hearings to determine whether these were indeed "communist-action" or "communist-front" organizations, and if so, to order them to register as such. Registration entailed annual provision of financial records and membership lists.

The Left, in addition to having its own culture(s), including its own cultural institutions, has expressed its views through the arts, both collectively, and individually. Views of the political role of the arts range from the utilitarian (agtiprop, etc.) to the transformative (Surrealism, etc.).

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left): Other Left Activism, was created with the Web Archiving Service from the California Digital Library. This service employs open source web archiving utilities developed by Internet Archive with the support of the The International Internet Preservation Consortium. The Web Archiving Service was made possible with support from the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program and the University of California, as part of a project to preserve born-digital political communication. The role of the Tamiment Library during this project and thereafter was/is to create topically based archives of websites documenting contemporary and ongoing labor and left activity, principally that based in the United States.

The United Hatters, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union (UHCMW) was formed in 1934 by the amalgamation of United Hatters of North America and the Cloth Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union. The United Hatters of North America was established in New York in 1896 as the result of the merger of two Knights of Labor-affiliated unions in the men's hat industry, the Hat Makers and the Hat Finishers. The Cloth Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union was established in New York in 1901, as the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers of North America (superseding the Cloth Hat and Cap Operators Union), and took its final name (adding Millinery Workers) in 1918. In 1983 the UHCMW joined the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, which in turn merged in 1995 with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union to form UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees).

The Communications Workers of America was founded in 1947, the culmination of over fifty years of organizing efforts in the telephone industry. During the next twenty-five years and under the leadership of Joseph A. Beirne the CWA moved aggressively to organize all the telephone workers in the United States. AT&T with its monopolistic control resisted. It was, however, not until 1974 after years of labor-management unrest and a series of strikes that AT&T agreed to system wide collective bargaining. Shortly after the national contract was signed Beirne died and was replaced as President by Secretary-Treasurer Glenn E. Watts.

In the 1980s the CWA began to expand beyond telecommunications creating a Public Employees Department that successfully organized 34,000 New Jersey state workers in 1981. In 1985 Morton Bahr became the CWA President. The CWA continued to grow due to a series of mergers. In 1987 the it merged with the International Typographical Workers Union, in 1992 it absorbed the National Association of Broadcast Employees, and in 1995 the Newspaper Guild merged with the CWA as well.

District Council 37 was chartered by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in November 1944, bringing together a group of small locals representing employees of New York City's public hospital, parks, finance, and health departments. In the 1940s and early 1950s, municipal workers had few of the benefits and protections enjoyed by union members in the private sector. One of the Council's major goals in its early years was to achieve access to collective bargaining and improve the wages and benefits for City employees.

Jerry Wurf, a New York City native, was elected president in 1947 and under his leadership, DC 37 began to grow in numbers and in strength. When Wurf was elected president of AFSCME nationally, Victor Gotbaum took over leadership of DC 37 in 1964. Like other AFSCME leaders, Gotbaum encouraged members to embrace social movement unionism by linking their struggles for higher wages and benefits to other economic, social, and political issues.

New York City's fiscal crisis of the 1970s proved challenging for DC 37. City employees suffered through lay-offs, wage freezes and benefit reductions. Through strikes and negotiations, and the national March for Jobs in Washington DC, DC 37 was able to minimize damage for workers and reach the 100,000 mark in membership.

In the 1980s and through to 2009, DC 37 continued with its social activism, working on women's rights in the work place, apartheid in South Africa, disability rights, and the celebration of Black History Month. Lillian Roberts, an organizer from Chicago who had worked with DC 37 in the 1960s and 1970s, was elected Executive Director in 2002.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, organizations, and bookstores, and through exchanges with other libraries via the Collectors' Network, which was organized by Russell Benedict at the University of Nevada in the 1970s and promoted through his newsletter Top Secret. Ongoing collecting by Library staff is another significant means for acquiring material for the collection.

The collection consists of files of printed ephemera relating to a broad range of subjects connected with the labor movement, trade unionism, radical politics, feminism, civil rights, and peace and other movements. Subjects include Students and Political Activity, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, the Vietnam War, particularly protest movements, documentation on the movement to landmark Union Square, Women's Liberation, and various communist countries.

Political posters' essential role in propaganda and sustaining morale of both combatants and civilians during the Spain’s Civil War of 1936-1939 has been well-documented in numerous books, exhibitions and catalogs. They were published by organizations representing both sides of the conflict, but best known, and most numerous, were those produced by the government of the Spanish Republic and its allies. These posters, published by political parties, labor unions and federations, and other entities, reflect deep divisions between the Republic's supporters -- ranging from the Socialist, Communist and Anarchist parties, to smaller splinter groups, collectives, aid organizations, youth groups, and regional militias.

Their striking graphic qualities and propaganda value, which observers noted during the War and have attracted art historians and collectors ever since, served very practical ends. Posters were aimed at, and competed for the attention of, viewers who were often literally under fire. The large numbers of posters that were produced (an estimated 1,500-2,000 posters appeared, many printed in editions of 3,000 to 5,000, in the brief period 1936-1939) made them “an essential part of the visual landscape” of the war, as one scholar has observed. Posters were also used to garner support for the Republic, and for the International Brigades of volunteers that came to its defense, in other countries around the world.

In the years after the War’s end, posters continued to be used to publicize history of the Republic and its legacies. Posters protested the authoritarian rule of General Franco (whose rebel forces had defeated the Republic), memorialized the War and the Republic, advocated for refugees and veterans, and eventually celebrated the return of a democratically-elected government to Spain after Franco’s death in 1975.

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The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) traces its origins back to the Communist League of America, a group of exiled Communist Party of the United States of America members who supported Leon Trotsky over Joseph Stalin. The Communist League of America merged with the American Workers Party in 1934 to create the Workers Party of the United States. This organization dissolved in 1936 to allow its members to enter the Socialist Party, where they constituted a left wing. Members of the left wing, after expulsion from the Socialist Party, founded the Socialist Workers Party early in 1938. The SWP's paper, The Militant, has been in publication since 1928. The group also maintains the Pathfinder Press. Founders included James P. Cannon and George Breitman.

From the beginning, the SWP viewed itself as the American section of an international left wing of the communist movement. The SWP believed that the program and practices of the Communist International were in need of drastic reform. Going even further, the Fourth International was established in 1938 with the proclaimed goal of completely supplanting the Communist International and serving as the world party of socialist revolution.

Political differences and ruptures plagued the Fourth International for the next four decades. In the 1980s, the Socialist Workers Party found itself increasingly at odds with the international body as the party ceased to define itself as Trotskyist. The 12th World Congress of the Fourth International in 1985 was the last in which representatives of the Socialist Workers Party participated.

The SWP has run candidates in presidential elections since 1948. The Young Socialist Alliance is the youth wing of the SWP.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, organizations, and bookstores, and through exchanges with other special library collections via the Collectors' Network, which was organized by Russell Benedict at the University of Nevada in the 1970s and promoted through Benedict's newsletter Top Secret. Ongoing collecting by staff is another significant means for acquiring printed ephemera for the collection.

The collection contains materials on individuals connected with the labor movement, trade unionism, radical politics, feminism, civil rights, and peace and other movements such as Angela Davis, Irving Howe, Vito Marcantonio, Paul Robeson, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and I.F. Stone.

The Communications Workers of America was founded in 1947, the culmination of over fifty years of organizing efforts in the telephone industry. During the next twenty-five years and under the leadership of Joseph A. Beirne the CWA moved aggressively to organize all the telephone workers in the United States. AT&T with its monopolistic control resisted. It was, however, not until 1974 after years of labor-management unrest and a series of strikes that AT&T agreed to system wide collective bargaining. Shortly after the national contract was signed Beirne died and was replaced as President by Secretary-Treasurer Glenn E. Watts.

In the 1980s the CWA began to expand beyond telecommunications creating a Public Employees Department that successfully organized 34,000 New Jersey state workers in 1981. In 1985 Morton Bahr became the CWA President. The CWA continued to grow due to a series of mergers. In 1987 the it merged with the International Typographical Workers Union, in 1992 it absorbed the National Association of Broadcast Employees, and in 1995 the Newspaper Guild merged with the CWA as well.

The labor union now known as District 65, UAW, was organized in 1933, by Arthur Osman and in 1938 became Local 65 of the United Retail and Wholesale Employees of America, CIO. In 1948, Local 65's leadership refused to sign the Taft-Hartley Act's non-communist affidavits, and Local 65, seceded from its parent union and the CIO but rejoined in 1954 as District 65 of the RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union). In 1969, differences, including the union's opposition to the Vietnam War, led to District 65's disaffiliation from the RWDSU and the formation of the National Council of Distributive Workers of America. In 1979, District 65 joined the United Automobile Workers. Though at first primarily composed of Jewish workers, the union expanded to include persons of various geographical and ethnic backgrounds from the retail and manufacturing sectors, clerical personnel, salesclerks, writers, editors, technicians, and lawyers. The collection contains minutes, shop files, arbitrations, grievances, counsel files, membership information and reports, financial material, and the records of some of the unions that were affiliated with District 65 throughout its history.

In February, 1950, an international that was to be one of the shortest- lived unions in American labor history came into being. This was the Distributive Workers Union (DWU), formed by a merger of local 65 and other former Retail and Wholesale affiliates: Local 2 (Gimbels-Saks 34th Street); Local 3 (Bloomingdales); Local 5 (Sterns); Local 1199 (Drug Clerks); and Local 144 (Displaymen). Local 1250, formerly affiliated with the Retail Clerks International and representing the Norton's department stores employees and Local 121, formerly part of the Gas, Coke and Chemical workers also merged. Local 65 had 122 of the 290 delegates to which the various merging locals were entitled. Arthur Osman headed the international; David Livingston became president of Local 65. In April, 1950, Local 65 leaders signed the non-communist affidavits in order, they said, to minimize the danger that other unions would use the NLRB facilities against the DWU's proposed organizing campaign.

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) was founded in 1919 by members of the left wing of the Socialist Party USA. The CPUSA played an important role in the labor movement, particularly in the building of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s-1940s, in struggles for civil rights for African Americans. Its cultural initiatives in the 1930s attracted a number of prominent artists and intellectuals, and its struggles to attain and maintain its legality were an important chapter in the history of U.S. civil liberties.

In 2009, the Communist Party of the United States of America and the Library of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies donated its collection to the Tamiment Library.

NABET was founded in 1934 as the Association of Technical Employees (ATE). The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) formed the ATE as a company union, in an effort to prevent their employees from being organized by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The ATE would not stay under NBC control for long. It began an energetic organizing campaign, and in 1940 changed its name to the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians (NABET).

During this period, NBC owned two national networks, designated Red and Blue. In the early 1940s the Federal Communications Commission ordered NBC to divest some of its holdings, and NBC sold the Blue network, which soon became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). NABET retained the right to represent the professional employees of ABC.

In 1951, in the midst of a jurisdictional dispute with the IBEW and looking for allies, NABET joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO gave NABET a charter to organize all broadcast industry employees. To reflect this broadening of representation, the union changed its name to the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians and began to organize non-professional workers.

Shortly after its affiliation with the CIO, the NABET-IBEW dispute came to a head over organizing the Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS). The CBS disagreement was brought before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Board ruled in favor of the IBEW, which was given authority to organize CBS technical employees.

In 1967 the Hollywood and New York City locals led a fight to strengthen the authority and autonomy of local NABET organizations. This dispute nearly destroyed the union, but resulted in constitutional changes that increased the influence and independence of the network locals.

NABET led ABC national network employees through a strike in 1977. Again in 1987, the NABET workers struck, this time on behalf of the NBC national network. Throughout the late 1970s to the mid-1990s NABET continued to organize local networks and affiliate stations.

In 1993 NABET became affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). In 1994 NABET and CWA held a conference on the possibility of solidifying their affiliation with a formal merger. The conference was a success, and in 1994 NABET merged with CWA. The union once again changed its name, becoming NABET-CWA. NABET-CWA currently represents over 10,000 workers in the broadcast industry.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a radical student group born from the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), which was the student branch of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), a social democratic organization. The group was expelled from the LID in 1965 and gained national prominence in the late 1960s as the Students for Democratic Society.

In 1962, SDS held its first national convention in Port Huron, Michigan and it was there that they adopted the eponymous "Port Huron Statement" as their political manifesto. The manifesto was drafted by Tom Hayden, but convention members helped craft it into its final form. While not pro-Soviet Union, SDS did not take an anti-communist approach in their organizing activities. This issue led to the trouble with the League for Industrial Democracy and the eventual split. The group organized around numerous issues, including, opposing the Vietnam War, the draft, and participatory democracy. In April 1965, SDS organized the March on Washington opposing the war in Vietnam, which drew tens of thousands of people and situated SDS nationally as one of the primary organizations of the New Left. Organizing around civil rights issues, SDS was inspired by the work of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. SDS was primarily a campus organization, but began to spread to more community oriented projects like the Economic Research and Action Project and Chicago JOIN projects.

During 1968, SDS experienced increased factionalism involving Progressive Labor (PL) members and the RYM I group who advocated a more student-oriented, militant, counter-cultural program. The June 1968 SDS National Convention was full of discord. PL supporters gained policy victories that stressed attempts to gain working-class support, but RYM I and other non-committed delegates continued to dominate the organization's leadership positions. SDS persevered and remained in the center of student protests like the Columbia University strike in the spring of 1968 and the activities at the Democratic National Convention that summer in Chicago.

After being at the forefront of the New Left during the 1960s, internal pressures surfaced again at the June 1969 National Convention. SDS split into three factions: PL, Weathermen, and RYM II. This latter group, composed of diverse, moderate SDSers, collapsed within a year due to its inability to develop a coherent activist program. The Weathermen, who included many of the national leaders and staff members, sought to initiate an immediate revolution; within six months, the organization had gone underground and its leaders were wanted in connection with mob violence and bombing. SDS-PL continues today as an off-shoot of the Progressive Labor Party.

The labor union now known as District 65, UAW, was organized in 1933, by Arthur Osman and in 1938 became Local 65 of the United Retail and Wholesale Employees of America, CIO. In 1948, Local 65's leadership refused to sign the Taft-Hartley Act's non-communist affidavits, and Local 65, seceded from its parent union and the CIO but rejoined in 1954 as District 65 of the RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union). In 1969, differences, including the union's opposition to the Vietnam War, led to District 65's disaffiliation from the RWDSU and the formation of the National Council of Distributive Workers of America. In 1979, District 65 joined the United Automobile Workers. Though at first primarily composed of Jewish workers, the union expanded to include persons of various geographical and ethnic backgrounds from the retail and manufacturing sectors, clerical personnel, salesclerks, writers, editors, technicians, and lawyers. The collection contains minutes, shop files, arbitrations, grievances, counsel files, membership information and reports, financial material, and the records of some of the unions that were affiliated with District 65 throughout its history.

In February, 1950, an international that was to be one of the shortest- lived unions in American labor history came into being. This was the Distributive Workers Union (DWU), formed by a merger of local 65 and other former Retail and Wholesale affiliates: Local 2 (Gimbels-Saks 34th Street); Local 3 (Bloomingdales); Local 5 (Sterns); Local 1199 (Drug Clerks); and Local 144 (Displaymen). Local 1250, formerly affiliated with the Retail Clerks International and representing the Norton's department stores employees and Local 121, formerly part of the Gas, Coke and Chemical workers also merged. Local 65 had 122 of the 290 delegates to which the various merging locals were entitled. Arthur Osman headed the international; David Livingston became president of Local 65. In April, 1950, Local 65 leaders signed the non-communist affidavits in order, they said, to minimize the danger that other unions would use the NLRB facilities against the DWU's proposed organizing campaign.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, trade unions and other organizations. Ongoing collecting by staff is another significant means for acquiring printed ephemera for the collection.

The Library's Trade Union Printed Ephemera Files include material generated by federations and national, regional and local bodies, as well as departments and divisions of trade unions. While a small portion of the material is international in scope or associated with other regions of the United States, the majority of the collection relates to the New York metropolitan area.

The Tamiment Library, New York University, a special collection documenting the history of United States radicalism, labor, and progressive social action, accumulated this artificial collection of printed ephemera gradually over the years through purchases, donations, standing orders with publishers, trade unions and other organizations, and through exchanges with other special library collections via the Collectors’ Network, which was organized by Russell Benedict at the University of Nevada in the 1970s and promoted through his newsletter Top Secret. Ongoing collecting by staff is another significant means for acquiring printed ephemera for the collection.

The Library's Trade Union Printed Ephemera Files include material generated by federations and national, regional and local bodies, as well as departments and divisions of trade unions. While a small portion of the material is international in scope or associated with other regions of the United States, the majority of the collection relates to the New York metropolitan area.

The Tamiment Library's collection of newspapers from labor and activist organizations traces its origins to the library of the Rand School of Social Science, established in 1906. Located just off Union Square in New York City, the Rand School was a workers education institution supported by the Socialist Party of New York, the garment trades unions, the Workman's Circle, and the Jewish Forward Association. The Rand School taught courses in economics, economic history, U.S. history, literature, socialist theory, and labor-management relations. In the mid-1920s the Rand School established a Trade Union Institute to train people interested in careers in trade union organizing and administration. The school also sponsored a vast array of cultural programs: theatre groups, poetry readings, and a workers chorus.

The Rand School's library, which was renamed the Meyer London Memorial Library in 1926, after the Socialist Congressman from Manhattan's Lower East Side, always played an important role in the school. By the 1930s it had one of the finest collections New York City documenting the history of labor and the left. In addition to the book collections many of the unions and progressive organizations associated with the school placed copies of their newspapers, journals, newsletters, leaflets, broadsides, and ephemeral pamphlet literature with the Library. By the end of World War II the Library had a large and growing collection of both current and historical newspapers. However, by the early 1950s the school was in financial trouble and it closed in 1956. For the next seven years the Meyer London Library was maintained with a subsidy from the Tamiment Institute, the educational arm of Camp Tamiment, a socialist summer camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains.

In 1963 the Library was given to New York University. Under NYU administration the Tamiment Library grew rapidly, and today it has nearly 75,000 monograph volumes, a serial collection with more than 8,500 titles, a printed ephemera collection of nearly a million items, and 15,000 linear feet of archives, including personal papers, labor union records, photographs, film, graphics, and oral histories. The newspapers are part of the Library's serial collection. The holdings continue to grow through current subscriptions and donations of historical material.

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AFSCME was founded in 1932 in Wisconsin as an organization of white collar workers who wanted to save the civil service system in their state. The organization quickly spread to the national level. By 1936, the American Federation of Labor had granted a charter to AFSCME. At the time, the union was 10,000 members strong, but with the integration of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, AFSCME accommodated 40,000 more members. The composition also began to change to include more blue collar workers, who were more familiar with trade unions and trade union organizing. During the 1960s, AFSCME was involved in the civil rights and student movements, culminating in a strike of sanitary workers in Memphis, Tennessee attempting to gain union recognition after two African American men were crushed to death in a garbage truck.

Jerry Wurf served as president from 1964-1981. Under his leadership, AFSCME drew up a new international constitution which included a member bill of rights, the first of its kind in union history. AFSCME's primary focus was on winning collective bargaining laws, and was successful in gaining an increase in wages and family health insurance benefits through collective bargaining agreements with dozens of states.

The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was founded in New York City in 1900 in an effort to consolidate the power of the various garment trades into one collective force. The history of garment workers in general and of the nascent organizing efforts of the ILGWU in the early 20th century is plagued with tragedy, most well-known being the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 that claimed the lives of 146 workers who were locked into the factory and could not escape when a fire broke out. However, despite difficult conditions the ILGWU was hugely successful through work stoppages and strike campaigns in organizing large masses of garment workers in New York and around the country, establishing better working conditions and shorter working hours. In 1909, shirtwaist workers revolted in what was known as the "Uprising of 20,000" that eventually won the 52-hour work week. Over the next decade, strikes all over the country continued to win better conditions for garment workers. In 1913, the Union Health Center was established in New York City and provided decent and urgently needed health care for union members. Due to internal strife involving communist and anti-communist leadership, hardening economic conditions as well as anti-union efforts, the ILGWU and its membership suffered through the 1920s. Roosevelt's presidency and better labor laws brought a resurgence to organizing. David Dubinsky became president of the union in 1932 and served until 1966. Under Dubinsky's leadership, the union helped establish the Congress of Industrial Organizations, but eventually disaffiliated with them and went back to the American Federation of Labor in 1940. The ILGWU was a trailblazer in terms of providing education for workers, The Union's Education Department was vibrant, churning out pamphlets and publication on union history, membership and leadership. The ILGWU established social centers, offering numerous educational, community and athletic activities for its membership. Communism and corruption continued to be major sources of internal struggle for the ILGWU through the 1950s.

In July 1995 the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) at a joint convention, forming UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). Then in 2004, UNITE and the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) merged to form Unite Here.

The Labour Party of Great Britain formed around the turn of the 20th century in response to the need to represent the interests and needs of working-class people. The party grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century seeking these workers' representation. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress and the Independent Labour Party (founded 1893) established the Labour Representation Committee, which took the name Labour Party in 1906.

The Labour party came to power for the first time in 1924 and again in 1929. The party survives today as one of the leading political parties in England.

New York University’s Tamiment Library established the Oral History of the American Left (OHAL) in 1976. The purpose of this project was to expand the archive of American labor and radicalism through the creation of “living documents” by recording the memories of veteran activists. The idea, according to Project Director Paul Buhle, was “to create an archive of recorded reminiscences by participants in trade union struggles, political organizations, and grass-roots political and cultural activity.” The archive is intended to preserve the identity and legacy of the Left in the United States and to not overlook any of the diverse cultures involved in the movement or undervalue past periods of conflict and oppression.

Complementing the above goals, Buhle was motivated to use the growing practice of oral history to shed light on and “capture a collective understanding of the little understood 1919-1929 decade.” Additionally, he sought to add substance to the emergent “new social history” by uncovering previously ignored perspectives through the stories of his subjects. Buhle believed these untold stories, such as about the roles of women and midlevel activists, would add depth and complexity to traditional research methods and challenge our understanding of social movements.

Paul Buhle has been the director of the project since its founding in 1976. The staff included Roger Keeran who was co-director in the early years and Jon Bloom who joined the project in 1977 to work as an interviewer, coordinator, and fundraiser. Additional interviewers included Ruth F. Prago, Bea Lemisch, Amelia Green and several NYU students.

Interviewing began with a series of small grants provided by the Rabinowitz and Bronson Cutting Foundations. The New Jersey Historical Commission provided funding in 1978 to support interviews on radicalism in New Jersey between 1930 and 1960. Later, Ruth F. Prago developed the idea to start a radio series based on interviews held for the OHAL collection. Together with Pacifica Radio the project received a one-year grant from the New York State Council for the Humanities to conduct interviews with twenty-five women about radicalism during the 1930s. Radio producers used these interviews to create the radio series “Grandma was an Activist,” first broadcast in 1983. OHAL received major funding in 1982–1983 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This support enabled Paul Buhle to build a comprehensive collection of oral histories regarding ethnic-immigrant radicalism, its press and fraternal organizations. The NEH grant also enabled OHAL to collect hundreds of hours of interviews made by filmmakers on American anarchism, the Hollywood blacklist, the Communist Party, the Columbia University student strike of 1968, and other subjects.

The project also produced seven issues of a newsletter, and the transcript of a two-day conference co-sponsored by OHAL and the Tamiment Library on the occasion of the opening of the Max Shactman Papers in 1983.

The Tamiment/Wagner Moving Images Collection represents the core motion picture film collection of the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University. A description of the four main creators/subject areas of footage follows.

The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) was founded in New York City in 1934 by subway workers. Affiliating with the fledgling CIO, it soon became the bargaining agent for all New York City bus and subway systems, and branched out to form locals across the country. By the early 1950s the union's membership had grown to over 100,000, in both public and privately-owned transit lines. By the 1960s, TWU locals were also established among railroad, airlines, and utility workers and taxi drivers. Politically progressive, it actively supported equal rights for African-Americans long before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Its principal and eventually successful struggle in the decade or so following World War II was to win a five-day, forty-hour week for its members. Its New York Local 100 has always been the largest and most influential in the union.

The TWU’s founders were mostly Irish immigrants who came to the United States after the Irish rebellion of 1916. Among them was Michael J. Quill (1905-1966), a Kerry native and subway ticket clerk who led early organizing efforts for the TWU, and became its president, a position he held for the first thirty years of the union’s existence. Quill's leadership abilities and public persona quickly spread his influence beyond his own union to make him a key player in the broader labor and political arenas in New York and nationally. He was elected to two terms on New York’s City Council, on the American Labor Party ticket, was the chairman of the City’s CIO Council, and later served as a vice president on the AFL-CIO's executive council.

From its early days the TWU made aggressive use of public relations to communicate with its members as well as the general public, and to keep its fingers on the pulse of public opinion: it tape-recorded important meetings, it produced hundreds of radio advertisements for itself and its political allies, as well as live radio broadcasts. And it used moving images as well. It filmed union soapbox speakers and rallies and Michael Quill's election campaign rallies in the 1930; it documented TWU field days and victory rallies during World War II. In 1941 the union produced its first film documentary, the half-hour, United We Are Invincible (aka United We Strike, aka The Great Bus Strike of 1941 ), which told the story of the union's strike against New York City bus lines. This was followed by several other documentaries commissioned by the union. The TWU also enthusiastically embraced the new medium of television in early 1951, when it launched what was to be the first of hundreds of television programs and filmed press releases produced by the union (a small selection is included in this Collection). Most of these were made by professional filmmakers and producers, including Paul Miner, Tom Costigan, and Workers Film and Photograph League member, Leo Seltzer.

The labor union later known as District 65, UAW, was organized in New York City in 1933 by Arthur Osman. In 1938 it became Local 65 of the United Retail and Wholesale Employees of America, CIO. Though at first composed primarily of male, Jewish warehouse workers, the union expanded to include members of varied ethnic backgrounds from the retail and manufacturing sectors, clerical personnel, salesclerks, writers, editors, technicians, and lawyers, and it came to include large numbers of women. The union was characterized by democratic, rank and file rule, and an activist progressive political agenda that included early and active support for the civil rights movement.

The Jewish Labor Committee, an umbrella group of Jewish or Jewish-led trade unions and fraternal organizations, was founded in New York City in 1934. Its primary purposes were to organize anti-Nazi and anti-fascist activity and to provide assistance to European Jews and others persecuted by these movements. During World War II it maintained close ties with European resistance movements and was able to effect the rescue of hundreds of labor and socialist activists and their families. After the War, it assisted and resettled survivors and helped to reunite families, and became active in civil rights and labor rights campaigns in the United States and human rights work world wide.

John Albok (1894-1982), who immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1921, and opened a tailor shop to support himself and his family, was also a still photographer known for his sensitive depiction of Central Park, children, and New York City street life from the Depression through the 1960s; he also photographed images of trade-union and leftwing political protest and culture during this same period. He occasionally documented the same subjects in moving images, using 16mm black and white and color film.

Camp Tamiment, a summer resort for socialists, their families and friends, near Bushkill, Pennsylvania, opened in 1921. Its initial purpose was to serve as a summer retreat for faculty, students, and friends of the Rand School of Social Science (a school for workers in New York City that was closely allied with the Socialist Party) and to provide a reliable source of revenue to support the School. The Camp was also home to the Tamiment Playhouse, a major creative outlet for theater, dance, film, and television in the United States, nurturing major entertainment figures such as Max Liebman, Jerome Robbins and Danny Kaye.

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The Socialist Party of America was established on 29 July 1901 as a result of a merger between the moderate wing of the Socialist Labor Party and the Social Democratic Party. For most of its turbulent history, the Socialist Party has been reformist in its political attitudes and democratic in its organization. Until the mid 1950s, the Socialist Party advocated trade unionism, supported an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary conversion to socialism, and endorsed progressive as well as socialist candidates for public office. Between 1901 and 1912, the party's membership grew from 10,000 to 118,000 and the votes cast for socialist Presidential candidates increased proportionately from 100,000 to 900,000. By advocating reform of the political and economic system, the party was able to enlist the support of many orthodox socialists and many heterogeneous elements remaining from such progressive movements as the Greenbackers, Populists, and "Single Taxers". The result was a broad based party, particularly strong in the West, which was prepared to sacrifice ideological purity for numbers and revolutionary gains for immediate political success. Evidence of this policy was demonstrated in the fact that in 1912 there were 56 socialist mayors, over 300 socialist aldermen, many socialist state legislators, and one socialist member of the House of Representatives.

This success, however, was short lived. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, the Socialist Party suffered from the same external pressures which caused other progressive movements to stagnate. The party also suffered from numerous internal crises as well, including the expulsion of its revolutionary wing in 1912 1913; the party's official opposition to World War I, and the Russian Revolution of 1917, which encouraged the left wing of the party to demand a more militant program and, when this was not forthcoming, to secede from the party in 1919 and establish the Communist Party.

Following a brief resurgence in the late 1920s and early 1930s under the strong leadership of Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party was once again plagued with internal conflicts. The principal divisions within the party at this time were generational, geographical, and ideological in nature.

These three factions did not bring their differences of opinion into public focus until the 1932 Socialist Party convention in Milwaukee. The conflict intensified during the New York City fur workers dispute in 1933. In the fur industry of New York City there were two rival unions, one controlled by the Socialist Party Old Guard and the other led by the Communist Party. During the dispute over which union should represent all of the fur workers, the Militants charged that the Old Guard was attempting to subvert the communist union in its quest for total control despite the fact that most of the workers supported the communists. Norman Thomas concurred in this view and demanded that the Old Guard cease its activities against the communist union members. The Old Guard union responded to these charges by obtaining a labor injunction against the communist union. Eventually, the fur workers dispute was resolved when members of both unions negotiated a settlement.

Another incident which pitted the three factions against each other occurred during the debate on the Declaration of Principles at the 1934 Socialist Party convention in Detroit. The Declaration of Principles was drafted by the Progressives and the Militants and included numerous statements on issues which they believed every socialist should advocate. When the delegates finally adopted the Declaration of Principles before the convention adjourned, it clearly demonstrated that the Old Guard was gradually losing control of the party.

The factional strife came to a climax in 1936 when the Old Guard bolted from the Socialist Party after the national convention in Cleveland and organized the Social Democratic Federation. The withdrawal of the Old Guard was a serious loss for the party. Not only did major socialist figures from New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania leave the party, but they took with them much of the financial support of the party as well. In addition to these developments, two major urban political machines in the Socialist Party Reading, Pennsylvania and Bridgeport, Connecticut joined the Social Democratic Federation.

Following the departure of the old Guard, the Progressives and militants continued the party's infighting by dividing into three groups. The first group was an amalgamation of the old Progressives and the leadership of the Militants. Under the direction of Jack Altman and Paul Porter these moderates supported the American Labor Party and endorsed a more democratic view of socialism. A second group, formerly associated with the Militants, were emerging as the new left wing faction of the party. Calling itself the "Clarity" group after the periodical, Socialist Clarity, this group was led by Frank Trager, Gus Tyler, Robert and Max Delson, and Herbert Zam. Ideologically, the Clarity group was not opposed to labor parties and farm labor coalitions, but they were more insistent than the Altman group that any labor party wanting Socialist Party support should have a wide labor base and should repudiate capitalist reformist politics.

Complicating the situation within the party was an ultra left Trotskyite faction. Known as the Appeal group because of their periodical, Socialist Appeal, the Trotskyites maintained that the Socialist Party should repudiate all labor and farmer labor parties and thus transform itself into a revolutionary party.

These three factions clashed on a variety of issues during the late 1930s. In national convention sessions and local political campaigns, these groups differed over the Socialist Party's attitude toward preventing war, the Socialist Party's affiliation with the American League Against War and Fascism, and socialist cooperation with organized labor. By the end of 1937, the disputes between the various groups were so damaging to the conduct of party business that the National Executive Committee finally took decisive action and expelled the Trotskyite faction.

The Socialist Party never fully recovered from these setbacks, although negotiations were successful in reuniting the Social Democratic Federation with the party in 1957. Nevertheless, despite this encouraging development, the internal conflicts and the emergence of the New Left in the late 1950s and 1960s eventually caused the Socialist Party to lose its influence as an effective political organization.