View selected items from the world’s foremost archive of international radical social protest movements. "Social protest movements often involve intense passion, so expect to see some edgy and offensive items on display," says Labadie Collection curator Julie Herrada.
The Labadie Collection is the world’s largest publicly accessible research collection covering just about every 19th, 20th, and 21st century protest movement that can be documented on paper, from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street. It has served as a resource for thousands of people the world over, from high school students to seasoned researchers, from young activists in search of their roots to documentary filmmakers unearthing eye-catching images. Books, serials, manuscripts, pamphlets, photographs, audio recordings, posters, and political buttons are all part of this eclectic group of materials.
The collection has changed dramatically over the course of 100 years. It started when anarchist and labor organizer Joseph Labadie donated his books, pamphlets, journals, personal papers, and ephemera to the University of Michigan Library. The material remained untouched inside a locked cage for more than a decade until Agnes Inglis, herself a radical as well as a friend of Labadie's, discovered the state of things and took on the collection as volunteer—and untrained—curator. She created a handwritten card catalog for the existing collection, and began typing solicitation letters on a manual typewriter to acquire more items. Times changed; eventually the growing collection was cataloged, and as the Library entered the digital age it attained worldwide exposure.
View the exhibit during Audubon Room hours: Mon-Thurs 8:30am-7pm, Fri 8:30am-6pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 1pm-7pm
To visit the exhibit accompanied by the curator, please email your request to labadie-collection@umich.edu.
