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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

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_132/tam_132.html View

Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers, 1925-2001

Title: Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers

Simon W. (Si) Gerson, 1909-2004, was the longtime New York State, and later national legislative/political action director for the Communist Party, and was an advocate of proportional representation and ballot access for minor political parties, including in the 1980s-90s as a leader of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE). He served as Confidential Examiner to Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, 1938-40, managed Communist election campaigns (later writing a biography Pete: The Story of Peter V. Cacchione, New York's First Communist Councilman), and organized activities in support of the Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act, as was Gerson. In the 1950s he was executive editor of the Party's newspaper, the Daily Worker, and of its later successor, the Daily World. Along with his wife, Sophie Melvin Gerson, an organizer of the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929, he was a longtime resident of and community activist in the Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The papers contain clippings, correspondence with leading communists and political figures, published and unpublished writings including manuscripts, memorandums, newspaper columns, reviews and reports, a scrapbook and speeches, including materials relating to Cacchione's career and death, and to Gerson's several campaigns for public office, research notes and typescript drafts for several chapters of a never-completed book, "Do We Really Have Free Elections (ca. 1990)," a related manuscript by Adam Lapin, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The American Two Party System," Communist Party internal documents, including reports by leading figures, many relating to the communist political crises of 1956-58 and 1989-91, and minutes of and correspondence relating to COFOE and the publication Ballot Access News.

ArchivalResource: 15 Linear Feet in 30 manuscript boxes, 1 record carton, 1 flat box and 1 oversize folder in a shared flat box.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_330/tam_330.html View

Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Papers, 1917-2018

Title: Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Papers, 1917-2018

James E. Jackson (1914-2007) and Esther Cooper Jackson (1917- ) are African American communists and civil rights activists, best known for their role in founding and leading the Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-48). James Jackson was head of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) Louisiana state organization in 1946, and was a Party organizer in the automobile industry in Detroit from 1947-50. He then moved to New York, becoming the Southern Director for the Communist Party. In 1951 he was indicted under the Smith Act, and became a fugitive until 1955. He later served as the Communist Party's Educational Director and as International Affairs Secretary, retiring in 1991. Esther Cooper Jackson served as Executive Secretary of the Southern Negro Congress from 1942-1946. She also co-founded and served as the managing editor from 1961-86 of Freedomways, an influential African American political and cultural quarterly. The papers contain clippings of articles by and about Jackson; correspondence of both Esther Cooper and James E. Jackson, including the Jacksons' voluminous World War II correspondence with each other; James Jackson's lectures, research notebooks, speeches, and writings and subject files. Also included are correspondence, internal documents and printed ephemera pertaining to the Southern Negro Youth Congress, and to Freedomways, legal and other materials pertaining to the Smith Act indictments of James Jackson and other communists as well as Communist Party internal documents.

ArchivalResource: 37.50 Linear Feet in 26 record cartons, 5 manuscript boxes, 1 half manuscript box, 6 oversize flat boxes, 1 small flat box, 1 small box, and 2 flat file folders

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_347/tam_347.html View

Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers, 1925-2001

Title: Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers

Simon W. (Si) Gerson, 1909-2004, was the longtime New York State, and later national legislative/political action director for the Communist Party, and was an advocate of proportional representation and ballot access for minor political parties, including in the 1980s-90s as a leader of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE). He served as Confidential Examiner to Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, 1938-40, managed Communist election campaigns (later writing a biography Pete: The Story of Peter V. Cacchione, New York's First Communist Councilman), and organized activities in support of the Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act, as was Gerson. In the 1950s he was executive editor of the Party's newspaper, the Daily Worker, and of its later successor, the Daily World. Along with his wife, Sophie Melvin Gerson, an organizer of the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929, he was a longtime resident of and community activist in the Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The papers contain clippings, correspondence with leading communists and political figures, published and unpublished writings including manuscripts, memorandums, newspaper columns, reviews and reports, a scrapbook and speeches, including materials relating to Cacchione's career and death, and to Gerson's several campaigns for public office, research notes and typescript drafts for several chapters of a never-completed book, "Do We Really Have Free Elections (ca. 1990)," a related manuscript by Adam Lapin, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The American Two Party System," Communist Party internal documents, including reports by leading figures, many relating to the communist political crises of 1956-58 and 1989-91, and minutes of and correspondence relating to COFOE and the publication Ballot Access News.

ArchivalResource: 15 Linear Feet in 30 manuscript boxes, 1 record carton, 1 flat box and 1 oversize folder in a shared flat box.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_330/tam_330.html View

Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Papers, 1917-2018

Title: Guide to the James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson Papers, 1917-2018

James E. Jackson (1914-2007) and Esther Cooper Jackson (1917- ) are African American communists and civil rights activists, best known for their role in founding and leading the Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-48). James Jackson was head of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) Louisiana state organization in 1946, and was a Party organizer in the automobile industry in Detroit from 1947-50. He then moved to New York, becoming the Southern Director for the Communist Party. In 1951 he was indicted under the Smith Act, and became a fugitive until 1955. He later served as the Communist Party's Educational Director and as International Affairs Secretary, retiring in 1991. Esther Cooper Jackson served as Executive Secretary of the Southern Negro Congress from 1942-1946. She also co-founded and served as the managing editor from 1961-86 of Freedomways, an influential African American political and cultural quarterly. The papers contain clippings of articles by and about Jackson; correspondence of both Esther Cooper and James E. Jackson, including the Jacksons' voluminous World War II correspondence with each other; James Jackson's lectures, research notebooks, speeches, and writings and subject files. Also included are correspondence, internal documents and printed ephemera pertaining to the Southern Negro Youth Congress, and to Freedomways, legal and other materials pertaining to the Smith Act indictments of James Jackson and other communists as well as Communist Party internal documents.

ArchivalResource: 37.50 Linear Feet in 26 record cartons, 5 manuscript boxes, 1 half manuscript box, 6 oversize flat boxes, 1 small flat box, 1 small box, and 2 flat file folders

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_347/tam_347.html View

The Nation, records, 1879-1974 (inclusive), 1920-1955 (bulk).

Title: The Nation records, 1879-1974 (inclusive), 1920-1955 (bulk).

Records of the weekly magazine, The Nation, primarily during the editorship of Freda Kirchwey.

ArchivalResource: 34 boxes (42.5 linear ft.)

http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/hou00189/catalog View

Guide to the Reference Center for Marxist Studies Pamphlet Collection, 1900-2004

Title: Guide to the Reference Center for Marxist Studies Pamphlet Collection, 1900-2004

The Reference Center for Marxist Studies (RCMS) was a radical library housed in the headquarters of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) in New York City. The Center was founded in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Its pamphlet collection consists of more than 10,000 pamphlets and includes nearly every pamphlet published by the CPUSA. It also includes pamphlets published by hundreds of organizations affiliated with or of interest to the CPUSA, and English language pamphlets published in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. The pamphlets cover over 800 subject areas including: Communist Party activities throughout its history, anticommunism and the struggle against McCarthyism, the civil rights, labor and peace movements, the Spanish Civil War, anti-colonial and national liberation movements, and various Communist countries.

ArchivalResource: 48 Linear Feet (128 boxes)

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/pe_043/pe_043.html View

Guide to the Sophie M. Gerson Papers, 1929-2009

Title: Guide to the Sophie M. Gerson Papers, 1929-2009

Sophie Melvin Gerson (1910-1996) was a Communist labor activist who participated in the Gastonia, North Carolina Textile Strike of 1929, and in other labor organizing activities throughout the Mid-Atlantic states in the early 1930s.The collection contains letters from Sophie Gerson dated 1929-1931 to her husband Simon W. (Si) Gerson, who for many years ran the election campaigns of the Communist Party USA. The letters are written from various cities where Sophie Gerson was involved in labor organizing, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic states, but also including a few letters from Gastonia. In addition to discussing her organizing activities, affection for Si Gerson and Communist Party politics, there is also discussion of the problems of taking care of her son William, while being an organizer away from home. There is also one file from 1953 on the unsuccessful effort of the U.S. government to revoke her naturalization papers, and two photographs of Sophie Gerson.

ArchivalResource: 0.25 Linear Feet in 1 half manuscript box

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_401/tam_401.html View

Gerson, Simon W. Facts on the trial of the 12, 1949.

Title: Facts on the trial of the 12, 1949.

Includes a chronology of the trial; text of the indictments; biographies of the accused; data on the defense counsel, prosecution, clerk, judge and jury; summations; verdicts; sentences; and other documents.

ArchivalResource: [2], 111 leaves ; 30 cm.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/237396672 View

J. B. Matthews Papers, 1862-1986 and undated

Title: J. B. Matthews Papers, 1862-1986 and undated

J. B. Matthews (1894-1966) was a Methodist missionary, college professor, author, lecturer, and prominent conservative spokesman. Collection consists of correspondence, memoranda, statements, speeches, reprints, clippings, broadsides, newsletters, press releases, petitions, and other printed material, chiefly 1930-1969. The principal focus of the collection relates to the work and research of Matthews and his associates in the area of anti-communism, particularly in connection with Matthews' role as Director of Research for the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the U.S. House of Representatives (1938-1945), Executive Director of the Permanent Subcommittee on Government Operations of the U.S. Senate (1953), and a consultant for John A. Clements Associates. Many of the organizations, newspapers, periodicals, and persons represented in the collection have various leftist, socialist, communist, radical, or pacifist (especially anti-Vietnam War) connections.Individuals represented in the files include Ralph Abernathy, Bella Abzug, Roy Cohn, John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael Harrington, Alger Hiss, J. Edgar Hoover, Jesse Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Joseph Lash, Joseph McCarthy, Carl McIntire, Benjamin Mandel, Richard Nixon, Aristotle Onassis, Lee Harvey Oswald, Linus Pauling, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Louis Untermeyer.

ArchivalResource: 479 Linear Feet; 307,000 Items

http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/matthews/ View

Michael Gold: Peter V. Cacchione Manuscripts, c. 1948-c. 1974

Title: Michael Gold: Peter V. Cacchione Manuscripts c. 1948-c. 1974

ArchivalResource: 0.75 linear feet; (3 boxes boxes)

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_339/tam_339.html View

Guide to the Daily Worker and Daily World Negatives Collection, 1930-2001

Title: Guide to the Daily Worker and Daily World Negatives Collection, 1930-2001

The official organ of the Communist Party, USA, the Daily Worker's editorial positions reflected the policies of the Communist Party. At the same time the paper also attempted to speak to the broad left-wing community in the United States that included labor, civil rights, and peace activists, with stories covering a wide range of events, organizations and individuals in the United States and around the world. As a daily newspaper, it covered the major stories of the twentieth century. However, the paper always placed an emphasis on radical social movements, social and economic conditions particularly in working class and minority communities, poverty, labor struggles, racial discrimination, right wing extremism with an emphasis on fascist and Nazi movements, and of course the Soviet Union and the world-wide Communist movement. The paper has had a succession of names and has been published in varying frequences between daily to weekly over the course of its existence. In 2010 it ceased print publication and became an electronic, online-only, weekly publication titled the <i>People's World</i>. The bulk of the collection consists of printed photographic images produced through a variety of processes, collected by the photography editors of the <i>Daily Worker</i> and its successor newspapers as a means of maintaining an organized collection of images for use in publication. Images of many important people, groups and events associated with the CPUSA and the American Left are present in the collection, including many local and national labor unions, particularly those affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

ArchivalResource: 36 Linear Feet

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/photos_223_001/photos_223_001.html View