Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Records of the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy, two New York City-based American organizations working to raise funds and provide medical and humanitarian aid for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and to refugees who fled Spain after the defeat of the Republican forces in April 1939. The organizations formally merged in January 1938 and became known as the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign. These files include the organization's official reports, correspondence, pamphlets, broadsides, photographs, and publicity material, as well as several scrapbooks of news clippings.

Professional and personal papers of Robert J. Flaherty and of his associates Frances Hubbard Flaherty and David Flaherty, concerning his career as an explorer in the Hudson Bay area, and as a film-maker from 1913 until 1951. The collection includes correspondence, diaries, financial records, scripts, publicity materials, his books, short stories, and articles and stills from his films including NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922), MOANA (1925), MAN OF ARAN (1934), ELEPHANT BOY (1937), THE LAND (1941), and LOUISIANA STORY (1948). Also, files of the Robert Flaherty Foundation, including the later personal papers of Flaherty's wife, Frances Hubbard Flaherty.

Manuscripts comprising notes, speeches, and articles, covering a wide range of social and political subjects and giving an extensive history of the Communist Party. Many of the manuscripts relate to his work as a theoretical writer for the Communist Party and the DAILY WORKER (New York). Subjects covered include the Garvey movement in 1924 and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights in the early 1930s; the re-orientation of the Communist Party in 1945-1947 with respect to the South and the Negro question generally (Minor became the Party's Southern representative in that period); the Party's general policies in the early 1930s and 1941-1942 when Minor was acting secretary in the absence of Earl Browder, and relating to the Party's policy toward the war following the German attack on the Soviet Union; postwar changes in the Party; the "Agrarian Movement;" and the Communist trials of 1949-1953. The extensive clipping file covers the entire domestic political scene and reflects the whole of Minor's career. These date from 1907 to his death, and contain considerable material on the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War. Also, numerous pamphlets and ephemera relating to the Communist Party.

Correspondence, manuscripts, subject files, and photographs of Tannenbaum, including typewritten lists of property records in the various states of Mexico, ca. 1926; and clippings relating to Mexico. Some of these materials were used in the preparation of his book THE MEXICAN AGRARIAN REVOLUTION. Also, personal letters and files relating to the Farm Security Program, and specifically the Bankhead Bill and the Farm Tenant Bill, 1937, 1934-1937.

Correspondence with the officers of the League, Clarence G. Hoag, George H. Hallett, Jr., their secretary Miss Elsie S. Parker, and the Field Secretary Walter J. Millard. Correspondence also includes material to and from Proportional Representation Societies in other countries, the largest of which is in Great Britain. Also, research materials concerning early advocates of proportional representation; and correspondence, manuscripts, documents, reports, charts, clippings, and printed materials kept by Richard Spencer Childs.

Congressional papers consisting of correspondence memoranda, speeches, reports, photographs and printed materials relating to her terms in Congress. The collection contains general correspondence and administrative files, as well as extensive subject files on a wide variety of topics with which Abzug was involved while in Congress. Also included are Legislative files, being the chronological files of background material for legislation considered on the House floor, and printed versions of legislation by Abzug and others. The Casework Files, relating to Abzug's advocacy on behalf of constituents involved in civil rights, housing, military, employment and related cases, are closed. Among the major correspondents are Carl Albert, Abraham D. Beame, Hugh L. Carey, Gerald R. Ford, Edward I. Koch, John V. Lindsay, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and Gloria Steinem. Materials added in 1981 include: draft transcripts of an oral history, appointment books, speeches and subject files (particularly on privacy and freedom of information) all interfiled in the collection and campaign materials press releases and newspaper clippings.

Wesley McCune founded Group Research Inc. in 1962 after a successful career as a journalist for such magazines as "Newsweek", "Time", "Life", and "Changing Times. Group Research Inc. was based in Washington DC until ceasing operations in the mid-1990s. The organization collected materials that focus on the right-wing and span four decades. The archive includes information about and by right-wing organizations and activists in the form of publications, correspondence, pamphlets, reports, the newspaper "Congressional Record," and magazine clippings and other ephemera. McCune and his small staff also published an initially bi-monthly but in later years monthly newsletter Group Research Report which kept its subscribers abreast of the latest views and actions of right-wingers.