Guide to the American Left Ephemera Collection, 1875-2015 AIS.2007.11

Arrangement

Repository
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Title
American Left Ephemera Collection
Creator
Oestreicher, Richard Jules
Collection Number
AIS.2007.11
Extent
22.75 Linear Feet (37 boxes)
Date
1875-2015
Abstract
Dr. Richard Oestreicher, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, amassed the American Left Ephemera Collection over a 35-year period to document the history of the American Left from the 1870s to the present. Digital reproductions of the collection are available online.
Language
While the bulk of the material in the collection is in English, there are a variety of foreign language items including Yiddish, Italian, Finnish, Spanish, Hungarian, French and others.
Author
Lindsay Bedford and Patrick Trembeth with assistance provided by Dr. Richard Oestreicher.
Publisher
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Address
University of Pittsburgh Library System
Archives & Special Collections
Website: library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections
Business Number: 412-648-3232 (Thomas) | 412-648-8190 (Hillman)
Contact Us: www.library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist
URL: http://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections

Accruals

Received a second donation of material in November 2014 and a third in December 2015.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Richard Oestreicher on October 2, 2008.

Access Restrictions

No restrictions.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged alphabetically by subject into 28 series; the list is arranged by type.

Series I. African Americans and the Left

Series II. Anarchists

Series III. Anti-War Propaganda

Series IV. Christian Socialism

Series V. Citizens Party

Series VI. Communists and Civil Liberties

Series VII. Communist Party USA (CPUSA)

Series VIII. Ethnic Radicalism

Series IX. Feminism, Gay and Lesbian

Series X. Labor

Series XI. Leftist Organizations Thought in Relation to the Rest of the World and U.S. Economics/Imperialism

Series XII. New Left Organizations

Series XIII. Other Radical/Leftist Organizations

Series XIV. Popular Front Culture

Series XV. Progressive Party

Series XVI. Socialist Labor Party (SLP)

Series XVII. Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)

Series XVIII. Socialist Worker's Party (SWP)

Series XIX. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Series XX. Student Peace Union (SPU)

Series XXI. Utopian Socialism

Series XXII. Vietnam War

Series XXIII. Realia: Pins and Other Objects

Series XXIV. Twenty-First Century Radical Movements

Series XXV. Democratic Socialism

Series XXVI. Food Not Bombs

Series XXVII. Populists/Pre-Populists

Series XXVIII. Radical Academics

Copyright

The University of Pittsburgh holds the property rights to the material in this collection, but the copyright may still be held by the original creator/author. Researchers are therefore advised to follow the regulations set forth in the U.S. Copyright Code when publishing, quoting, or reproducing material from this collection without the consent of the creator/author or that go beyond what is allowed by fair use.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Ethan Steinfels in 2009 and Lindsay Bedford and Patrick Trembeth in 2011. The second gift of material was processed by Kyle Conway in January-March 2015. Dr. Richard Oestreicher wrote all of the scope and content notes within the collection as well as writing the History section.

Related Material

A.E. Forbes Communist Collection, 1921-1972, AIS.2000.07, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Custodial History

In Oestreicher's own words, "In graduate school I discovered that the world of antique ephemera and collectibles gave me access to historical raw materials and a source of supplementary income. Selling junk was more fun and more lucrative than other jobs that had carried me through summer breaks in graduate funding. For the last thirty-four years I've followed a sometimes schizophrenic path: radical historian by day, hippy-trippy, petty bourgeois capitalist on the side. Along the way I accumulated a vast hoard of ephemera relating to American working-class and radical history." Oestreicher donated his collection to the Archives Service Center in 2007.

Scope and Content Notes

The collection includes items from the 1870s to the present including periodicals, photographs, letters, pamphlets, books, posters, flyers, labels, pins and other objects, but it emphasizes ephemeral items (e.g., items made for one time or brief usage and then likely to be discarded). While the majority of these items were produced by the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), or organizations linked to them, the collection also includes material from a wide variety of other organizations and movements as well as from unaffiliated activists and radical intellectuals.

Dr. Richard Oestreicher wrote all of the scope and content notes within the collection as well as writing the History section.

Existence and Location of Copies

Digital reproductions of the collection are available online.

History

The Left

Left and Right as political designations date to the French Revolution when the Jacobins sat on the left in the National Assembly and the Girondins on the right. The Left has come to mean movements, organizations, and intellectual or cultural tendencies that emphasize an egalitarian ethos, a utopian vision of social reconstruction, and a commitment to agitation and action to advance that ethos and vision.

Major Left-Wing Organizations in the Twentieth-Century U.S.

Only three left-wing organizations have attained mass followings in the twentieth-century U.S.: the Socialist Party of the U.S. (SPUSA), the Communist Party of the U.S. (CPUSA), and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Founded 1901 with remnants still in existence today, SPUSA reached a peak membership of about 120,000 around the 1912 election when it polled 6% of the presidential vote. The party declined sharply after 1919 from a combination of government repression, a split between reformists and revolutionaries crystallized by the Bolshevik revolution, and the effects of social change on their core constituencies and on the credibility of their hopes for imminent change.

CPUSA, formed out of an amalgamation of revolutionary factions from the 1919 split in the Socialist Party, reached a membership of roughly 75,000 (with a pool of close sympathizers, "fellow travelers," perhaps five to ten times larger than the membership) at the end of the 1930s and again during WWII. CPUSA declined very rapidly after the war under the impact of the Cold War, disillusionment with the Soviet Union, postwar prosperity, and the Party's dogmatic and sectarian tendencies.

SDS began as the student wing of the League for Industrial Democracy (originally an organization of socialist college students that evolved into a social-democratic policy group of intellectuals and union functionaries). They parted company with the parent organization over Vietnam and anticommunism in the early 1960s, and expanded rapidly during the 1960s as the most visible American exponents of the New Left. In contrast to the old Left parties, SDS did not collect monthly dues or keep systematic membership records, so estimates of its membership vary widely, but at its peak in 1968-69 probably several hundred thousand people identified themselves at least loosely with SDS.

Role of the Left in Modern U.S. History

Although each of these organizations briefly functioned as a mass movement, none sustained substantial organization for much more than a decade. Nonetheless, they had decisive impact on modern American history. Left-wing activists played crucial roles in virtually every progressive social movement in twentieth-century America: labor organization, civil rights and black liberation, antiwar and peace movements, feminism, gay rights, environmentalism, and anti-globalism. They shaped terms of debate in American political culture and forced mainstream politicians to respond to their arguments. Understanding the history of the Left is thus critical to understanding key themes in American history.

Previous Citation

American Left Ephemera Collection, 1875-2015, AIS.2007.11, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh

Preferred Citation

American Left Ephemera Collection, 1875-2015, AIS.2007.11, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Subjects

    Corporate Names

    • Student Peace Union (U.S.) -- History -- Sources
    • Socialist Workers Party -- History -- Sources
    • Socialist Labor Party -- History -- Sources
    • Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.) -- History -- Sources
    • Communist Party of the United States of America -- History -- Sources
    • Socialist Party (U.S.) -- History -- Sources

    Genres

    • Posters
    • Pamphlets
    • Buttons (Information artifacts)
    • Photographs

    Other Subjects

    • Communism -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • New Left -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • Radicalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources
    • Vietnam War, 1961-1975
    • Minorities -- Political activity -- United States -- Sources
    • Utopian socialism -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • Anarchism -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • Labor -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • Social action
    • Politics
    • Christian socialism -- United States -- History -- Sources
    • Socialism -- United States -- History -- Sources

Container List