More than 1,500 color political posters and broadsides and over 1,500 U.S. labor movement photographs from NYU’s Tamiment Library are now available exclusively to the NYU community through the ARTstor website (under “Browse — Institutional Collections – “United Automobile Workers of America, District 65 Photographs” Collection – Part I: Negatives“ and “Tamiment/Wagner Poster and Broadside Collection”).
The posters, from the United States and around the world (more than 30 countries are represented) and dating from 1904 to 1991, relate to left-radicalism, progressive movements, labor unions and counter-culture. Subjects include black power and civil rights, the Spanish Civil War, the women’s liberation movement, Native American and gay liberation movements, the movement against the Vietnam War, and student protest, as well as a broad range of political parties outside of mainstream American party politics, such as the Communist Party of the United States, various Socialist parties, and some less well-known political organizations such as the American Labor Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
The photographs, shot for the newspaper of District 65/UAW, a New York City-based labor union of warehouse, retail, and white collar workers, span the late 1930s through the early 1960s and document Left and liberal causes of the 1940s-1960s, including civil rights; rank and file participation in union activities; work places; and working class leisure and recreational activities. Also included are images of prominent left-wing and liberal politicians, entertainers, and celebrities, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Vito Marcantonio, and Henry Wallace.
For a more complete description of each of the collections, go to the respective collections’ portion of the ARTstor website, or to the Tamiment website at: http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/artstor_posters.pdf and http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/artstor_dist65_photos.pdf. While access to these collections is currently limited to NYU users only, it is hoped that access will be eventually expanded to include all of ARTstor’s institutional subscribers.