| Early American Marxism | The Black Panther Party (1966-1979) |
| American Marxism didn’t spring from nothing during the Great Depression, there were over sixty years of conflict and struggle before the stock market fell with a thud. Early American Marxism compiles organizational histories and collects documents relating to American radicalism’s early years – from the First International in America to the Socialist Labor Party to the Socialist Party to the Communist Party (and including the Foreign Language Federations that played such a pivotal role in the early American movement). | The Black Panthers represented one of the first organized attempts in U.S. history to militantly struggle for racial and working class emancipation – a party which inherited the teachings from Malcolm X to Mao Tse-Tung, and set on their agenda the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines. |
| Malcolm X (1925 - 1965) | GATT (1948-94) |
| Black nationalist freedom fighter; Muslim Minister, formerly of the Nation of Islam, which he helped build from an organisation of hundreds to hundreds of thousands. Assassinated. | The U.S. began its fundamental control over the world economy after WWII had devestated Europe and left capitalism on the brink of world-wide collapse, through the Bretton Woods Agreements. This archive currently contains the text of The General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade, an organisation that soon would become the WTO. |
| The Triangle Fire (1911) | Lawrence, Mass. Strike (1912) |
| A collection of articles from The New York Call, documenting the disastrous fire that stimulated the growth of unionism among the Italian and Jewish workers in the needle trades in New York, and the passing of fire, building and health regulations. | In Lawrence, Massachussettes, europeans immigrating to the US were able to find work. Lawrence was a “mill town” – around half of its 85,000 residents over the age of 14 were working in the mills. Health conditions were so deplorable in the mills that one-third of Lawrence residents died before the age of 25. When the government reduced the working week with mill owners immediately lowering wages, 20,000 unionised workers walked out of the mills. |
| Teamsters Strike, Minneapolis (1934) | Shell Strike (1973) PDF pamphlet |
| The Minneapolis Teamster strikes of 1934 were among the most important strikes in US labor history. Vicious battles between police, scabs and truckers broke out throughout the summer of 1934 resulting in the workers being in full control of the city of Minneapolis with the police and scabs chased off the streets. These same truckers went on to organize the entire Upper Mid-west trucking industry with more than 250,000 members enrolled. | OCAW (Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers’ Union) Strike against Shell Oil, after continual health and safety concerns went unaddressed by the bosses. Shell, the fourth largest company in the world (at the time), refused to be held accountable for the lack of workers’ safety nor would they allow the workers to change existing health and safety ‘standards’. On January 23, 1973, 4,000 men and women – from the US West coast to the Gulf of Mexico – walked out of five refineries and three chemical plants. |
| IWW (1905 - 1943) | Civil Rights (1952-present) |
| The Industrial Workers of the World... | Documents on the history of the Civil Rights Struggle. Under development. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis (1961-63) | Foreign Relations with USSR (1918) |
| A detailed time-line of the Cuban Missile Crisis based on recently declassified U.S. government documents. This account details event by event leading up to the crisis, including the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the terrorism (assassination, sabotage, etc) and economic warfare waged by the U.S. just months after the revolution, U.S. nuclear proliferation around the world, and much, much more. | Contains documents by various US Ambassadors and Counsels with the US Secretary of State, explaining the current events in Soviet Russia, explaining their positions and thoughts. Organized into three sections, sorted by date, subject, and author. |
| US Presidents (1892-2000) | U.S. Military History (1945-49) |
| Archiving key documents on various presidents including presidential diktats (executive orders), and charting the candidates for the presidency of the leftist parties throughout the past century, from the Communist to the Green Party, and the success of their presidential campaigns. | A time line of U.S. military action since the end of World War II. This span of events currently covers 1945 to 1949, and details every military action of the U.S. military: from suppressing the revolutions of the Philippines, Greece & Italy to losing the civil wars in China, Korea, & Albania. |
| The Liberator (1918-1924) | |
| The Liberator was a monthly magazine established by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman in 1918 to continue the work of The Masses, which was shut down by the wartime mailing regulations of the US Government. It was a journal which combined astute radical political coverage of events of the day, fine art, poetry, and some of the best left-wing political cartoons in the history of American journalism. |
Books
1840: Democracy in America, by Alexander De Tocqueville
1921: History of the United States, by Mary Beard. Note: This book is a secondary source.
1935: CPUSA: Manual on Organisation: This booklet was published in 1935 and became an indispensible tool for party members around the USA on how to conduct every aspect of their affairs: from organising Shop, Town, and Street Units to disciplinary measures.
To volunteer, ask questions, or send comments, mail Brian Basgen.