Guide to the Communist Party of the United States of America Records, 1892-2009
Title:
Guide to the Communist Party of the United States of America Records, 1892-2009
The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is a Marxist-Leninist political organization that was founded in Chicago in 1919. The CPUSA played a pivotal role in many significant political and social movements of the 20th century. Its Party platform focused largely on working class issues such as fair wages and unemployment, civil rights for racial and ethnic minorities, civil liberties for politically persecuted communities, economic justice for the poor, the unemployed and for immigrants, and international peace efforts. The Party's work left an indelible mark in the arena of progressive politics and made it an influential force in the labor movement, particularly from the 1920s to the 1940s. Its varied political, social, and cultural initiatives attracted the support of a number of prominent artists, intellectuals, and activists, including Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis. Though the CPUSA's strength and size declined sharply following World War II and the advent of the Cold War and McCarthyism, it remains committed to socialism, peace, economic and social justice, and civil rights and liberties. The records of the Communist Party, USA provide vivid documentation of the organization's trajectory from its birth in 1919 to the early 2000s. The collection includes a diverse mix of correspondence, convention and conference materials, essays and manuscripts, internal discussion documents, reports, speech transcripts, research files, printed ephemera, clippings, legal documents, photographs, posters, audio tapes, films, videos, and a wealth of personal papers. Though materials from as early as 1892 can be found in the collection, the bulk of the records were created between 1950 and 1990. A more comprehensive record of the CPUSA's early 20th century activity can be found in the Files of the Communist Party of the USA in the Comintern Archives, 1919-1943 (Microfilm R-7548).
ArchivalResource:
480.5 Linear Feet, 3512 audiocassettes, 825 sound tape reels, 69 sound discs (cd), 612 videocassettes (vhs), 476 videocassettes (u-matic), 57 videocassettes (betacam), 62 videoreels (1/2 inch), 3 videoreels (1 inch), 7 videoreels (2 inch), 420 film reels, 34.51 Gigabytes on 15 CD-Rs, 20 floppy disks, 5 DVD-Rs, 1 zip disk, and 1 commercial CD
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