Archives and Manuscripts T-Z

A-F | G-L | M-S | T-Z

Tekla, Tad.
Papers, ca. 1932-1964. 1.5 feet.
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Socialist and pacifist active in labor, civil rights, cooperative, and world government movements. The papers comprise scattered meeting minutes of various organizations, notes (some very detailed) on speeches and other social functions attended by Tekla in the Cleveland area in the 1930s, carbon copies of outgoing correspondence, and a collection of mailing lists. There is a considerable amount of print and nearprint material—single issues of labor periodicals, newspaper clippings, for m letters, flyers, etc. The papers reflect to varying extents Tekla's activities in North Dakota as an organizer for the Civilian Public Service Union, a national organization of conscientious objectors performing alternative service during World War II; his efforts to recruit Cleveland auto workers to the Socialist Party in the late 1930s; and his membership on the national executive committee of the Socialist Party, the executive committee of the War Resisters League, the policy committee of Democracy Unlimited (ca. 1952-56), the Cleveland Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Committee for a Socialist Program and Action (ca. 1959-64). Tekla was heavily involved in the cooperative movement in Cleveland and to a lesser extent in the Saskatchewan Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in the mid-1940s.

Thánh Gióng. Tạ Thúc Bình
Photographic slides, 1970.
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This collection consists of twenty-one 35mm slides with color illustrations depicting the traditional Vietnamese story of Thánh Gióng, accompanied by two pages of descriptive information

Trabajadores de la Raza.
Archive, 1980-1985.  .75 linear ft.

Correspondence, financial records, notes, minutes, etc., relating to Trabajadores de la Raza, a Latino students organization at the University of Michigan during the early 1980s.  Includes materials from the organization’s participation in the annual Multi-Ethnic Fair in Ann Arbor, sponsored by the Multi-Ethnic Alliance of Ann Arbor, of which Trabajadores de la Raza was a member. 

Tufts, Colonel Henry.
Collection, 1968-1975. 6 linear ft.
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Tufts was head of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACIDC), which has the authority to investigate felony crime affecting the Army anytime, anyplace in the world. While heading the CID Tufts directed the organization of special task forces to examine the deaths of more than 300 unarmed civilians at the Vietnamese village of My Lai in 1969 and allegations of criminal activity in non-commissioned officer mess systems in Vietnam, Europe, and elsewhere. Tufts retired in 1975. The collection consists of administrative files, correspondence, and case files, including the My Lai and Son My investigations.

United States National Student Association.
Archive, 1962.  .25 ft.

Participant’s packet for attendance at 15th annual National Student Congress which took place at Ohio State University in 1962.  Contains program mandates, nominations for national office (including Rennie Davis), report to the Congress by President Edward Garvey, and other materials.

United States Social Forum
Archive, 2007, 2010.  .5 ft.

Flyers, leaflets, posters, brochures, programs, announcements and other materials obtained at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta and Detroit. 

University of Chicago 1969 Sit-In.
Collection. 1969. .25 linear ft.
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Mimeographed flyers, announcements, memos, and other documents relating to the 1969 University of Chicago sit-ins, when over 400 students occupied the University's Administration Building for 2 weeks. The collection includes chronologies, documents from the Committee of 500+, Marlene Dixon's firing, and the University Disciplinary Committee. 

Van Lydegraf, Clayton (1915-1992).
Papers. .5 linear ft.

Personal files (legal documents, manuscripts, typescripts, publications, clippings, flyers, and correspondence) belonging to Clayton Van Lydegraf, the mainly Seattle based old left communist CPUSA and Progressive Labor Party member and founder of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) who was influential in the Weatherman faction of SDS and became a key link between the WUO and their above-ground supporters. The collection contains materials related to PFOC and original manuscripts authored by Van Lydegraf.  

Van Valkenburgh, Warren Starr, 1884-1938.
Papers, 1912-1937. 10 inches (ca. 780 items).
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An anarchist and editor of Road to Freedom, Van Valkenburgh assisted Emma Goldman in typing and distributing her writings and correspondence. The collection documents his activities in the Socialist Party in Schenectady, N.Y.; as secretary for the Sociology Club, a group in Schenectady organized to study and debate social problems; as editor of Road to Freedom and Spanish Revolution; and as supporter of anarchist causes, including the Sacco-Vanzetti Case and the Spanish Civil War.

There is a collection of articles by Van Valkenburgh and others, as well as correspondence with many radical leaders, including Leonard D. Abbott, Stella Ballantine, Gustav F. Beckh, Alexander Berkman, Karl Dannenburg, Hippolyte Havel, Herman Kuehn, Maximilian Olay, Upton Sinclair, and Carlo Tresca. Correspondence with Emma Goldman concerns her lecture tours, politics, his writing for Mother Earth, and her trial, imprisonment, and deportation in 1919. Also included are transcripts of debates, leaflets, and newspaper clippings.

Vicinus, Martha J.
Papers, 1968-1976. 1.25 feet.
Unpublished finding aid available in the repository.
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English professor at the University of Indiana and the University of Michigan and founding member and officer of New University Conference, a radical organization concerned with overhauling American higher education by creating radical curriculum alternatives, abolishing course grades, and curtailing university involvement in military research. The collection includes correspondence, notes, reports, memoranda, and newspaper clippings relating to the organization and activities of NUC and to a 1972 trip of NUC delegates to Cuba. Also included are papers documenting efforts to organize a radical caucus within the Modern Language Association.

Vincent, Henry and Elizabeth.
Papers, 1909-1926. 23 items.

Journalist, populist, socialist, and editor of radical periodicals. The papers include correspondence, largely from Eugene and Theodore Debs, but also from Grace D. Brewer and Walter Hurt, about the hardships of Eugene Debs's imprisonment and the death of Julius A. Wayland, owner of Appeal to Reason; a poem by W. Hurt laid into a copy of his Eugene V. Debs: An Introduction (1910); and two scrapbooks on Eugene Debs kept by Vincent's wife, Elizabeth, which include photos, drawings, and newspaper clippings.

Vogel, Virgil J., 1918.
Correspondence with Tad Tekla, 1975-1983. 163 items.

Professor of history and social science, author of books on the American Indian, and member and officer of the Socialist Party. The letters chiefly concern the Socialist Party, activities of and relationships among officers, events (such as campaigns and conventions), and publication of various journals, including The Socialist Tribune, Hammer & Tongs, and Vogel's own bulletin, The Oar. The coverage is critical of the Party, containing frank remarks about individuals, e.g. , Frank P. Zeidler, national chairperson; Rick Kissell, national secretary; and David McReynolds, 1980 candidate for President of the United States. Some of the letters are written on the versos of other correspondence, including letters by Brahm Borsford , Toby Holonan, and Lee Hubert.

War Resisters League, 1960s-1980s.
Papers,  7 linear ft.
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Consists mainly of anti-nuclear campaign materials for various actions in the U.S., Germany, England, but also Vietnam Summer, direct action training manuals, handbooks, reports, bulletins, publications, photographs, songbooks, questionnaires, press packets, audio tapes (not available for use until reformatted), minutes, memos, reports, internal documents, banners.Boxlist available.
Stored separately: approximately 200 buttons, 30 posters, WRL Calendars and a large scrapbook of 1977 Seabrook action. Donation of Grace Hedemann, 2014.

Warren, Josiah, 1798-1874.
Papers, 1834-1868. 28 items.
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Warren was a reformer, musician, inventor, and founder in America of philosophical anarchism. His papers contain correspondence with Ambrose Cuddon, William Hayward, Eugene Hutchinson, Charles Coffin Jewett, Isaac J. Philpott, DeWitt Upson, and others about his stereotype invention, the equity movement, the cooperative society he founded in Modern Times (now Brentwood), New York, his philosophy of land ownership, and his journal, The Periodical Letter. There are several letters from his wife, Caroline (Cutter) Warren, from the years 1855-56. Also included are lecture notes, an article, and printed pamphlets and leaflets.

Weber, Edward C. (1922-2006)
Papers, 1949-2005. 28 linear ft.
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Edward C. Weber was long-time curator of the University of Michigan Special Collection’s Joseph A. Labadie Collection of radical history. Under his stewardship, the Labadie Collection grew into one of the premier and most forward-thinking holdings of materials relating to radical and protest groups from the United States and around the world. The Edward C. Weber Papers are made up of the subject’s correspondence and biographical materials, written from 1949 to 2006. The bulk of the collection, the correspondence is mostly comprised of Weber’s letters soliciting materials on behalf of the Labadie Collection or fielding reference questions from researchers, as well as personal correspondence from his family and friends. The collection’s materials are comprised of letters (typed and handwritten), printed out emails, postcards, greeting cards, news clippings, photographs, printed biographical materials, framed commendations, and other miscellaneous paper materials.

Weeks, Robert P. (d. 1986). Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti.
Papers, 1955-1958. .5 linear ft.

Collection includes correspondence, including letters to and from Tom O’Connor, Secretary of the Committee for the Vindication of Sacco and Vanzetti, Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Michael A. Musmanno, attorney and later judge, and author John Dos Passos; selected articles written about Sacco and Vanzetti; notes and research materials for the book; course notes; clippings; Sacco and Vanzetti pardon materials; and copies of "Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti" and "Record of the Public Hearing before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts Legislature ... recommending a Posthumous Pardon for Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti," (April 2, 1959).

Weik, Mary Hays, 1921-1979.
Papers, 1921-1979. 8.35 ft.
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The Mary Hays Weik Papers include correspondence with anti-nuclear activists world wide, public officials, concerned citizens, and Weik's family; newsletters and articles on nuclear power, civil rights, neighborhood improvement in Cincinnati in the 1950s, and right-wing and anti-communist organizations; other writings by Weik; legal documents on nuclear power plants in New York; research notes; newspaper clippings; and subject files. Also includes the correspondence, 1950-1954, of Caroline Urie, who, like Weik, was a leader of the American branch of the International Registry of World Citizens.

Weintraub, Max/Environmental Justice
Collection, 1991-2002. .5 linear ft.
Boxlist available.

Max Weintraub works at the US Environmental Protection Agency as a lead enforcement coordinator and researcher. The collection features reports, memos, and papers primarliy from the 1990s environmental justice movement, and includes documents pertaining to the development of the 1992 EPA report "Environmental Equity: Reducing Risk for All Communities," the first and second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summits, the 1994 Symposium on Health Research and Needs to Ensure Environmental Justice, and the short-lived Alliance for the Washington Office on Environmental Justice.

Werkheiser, Don, 1915-1998.
Papers, 1885-1998. 8 linear ft.
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Writer, teacher, social worker, and philosopher, Werkheiser sought to improve society through a multidisciplinary approach involving psychology, sociology, biology, politics, economics, and libertarian and anarchist principles. Heavily influenced by Theodore Schroeder, Werkheiser was also close to Laurance Labadie, Ralph Borsodi and Mildred Loomis, founders of the School of Living, which promoted decentralism, cooperative living, monetary reform, alternative education, and wilderness preservation. Most of Werkheiser’s writings center on the philosophy of Mutual Option Relationship, which he developed and promoted throughout his life. It is multidisciplinary in its nature but based mainly on principles of equal rights and freedom of the individual. The papers consist primarily of Werkheiser's writings (in the form of notes, drafts, and finished typescripts), correspondence with friends and colleagues, including Schroeder, Labadie, Loomis, Robert Anton Wilson, Ralph Templin, Mark Sullivan, Theo Megalli, Humbert Cofrances (regarding attempts to recover his property from among Shroeder’s effects), and others. A small number of photographs, materials documenting Werkheiser's interests and activities, and works by associates of Werkheiser are also present.

Williams, Robert F.
Papers, [195-]-1976. 62 items.

Black poet, editor, and civil rights activist, militant leader of Union County, N.C., NAACP, advocate of armed self-defense, and publisher of The Crusader. Consist of two series, the first being the records of the R. F. Williams Legal Defense Fund, 1971-72 (46 items) which comprise correspondence, petitions, financial records, and press releases concerning the Ann Arbor-based Legal Defense Fund's efforts to raise money in support of Williams's attempts to avoid extradition from Michigan to North Carolina where he had been charged with kidnapping a white couple during a 1961 civil rights confrontation in Monroe, N.C. The correspondence is largely that of defense fund coordinator Stephen H. Fleck, and includes letters from representatives of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Japanese Committee for the Defense of the Life and Fundamental Human Rights of Robert F. Williams.

The second series consists chiefly of copies of essays concerning the civil rights struggle in the U.S., including the history of racism and the black revolutionary movement, the limitations of M. L. King's philosophy of non-violence, and reviews of specific court cases. Also included are a detailed plan by N. Ajanaku for establishing a separate black community in Memphis, Tenn., three essays about the relations between black activists and Cuba, and two poems by Jomo L. M. X. Authors include J. Leib, C. Moré, R. Taber, and W. Worthy.

Wisotsky, Isidore, ca. 1895-ca.1970. Such a Life. 
Typescript, 1968. 333 pp. 

Unpublished autobiography of Isidor Wisotsky, recounting his experiences as a Russian-Jewish immigrant worker in New York and I.W.W. member active in labor and anarchist movements, with personal recollections of radical leaders of the period.

Women in the Resistance (Rossiter, Margaret)
Papers, 1974-1988. 7 linear ft.
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Margaret LaFoy Rossiter (1914-1991) was an internationally recognized author. A founder of the Women's Studies Program and a professor of Modern European History at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, she was an alumna of Bryn Mawr College and Douglass College of Rutgers University. She was the author of several articles and the book, Women in the Resistance. The bulk of the collection documents the research that went into writing Women in the Resistance. It contains interview transcripts and audio recordings, government documents, correspondence, articles, excerpts, photographs, ephemera, questionnaires, personal accounts and drafts of chapters as well as some research for, and reprints and drafts of, other works.

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Papers, 1960-1989 (Bulk 1960-1976).  .25 ft.
Contains branch letters, brochures, flyers, leaflets, resolutions, and reports of WILPF’s national activities. 

Workers' Power.
Records, 1970-1973. 3 ft.
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Bi-weekly newspaper based in Highland Park, Michigan relfecting the view of the "International Socialists." Consists primarily of marked up editorial copy and some miscellaneous administrative files.

World Assembly for Peace and Life Against Nuclear War
Archive, 1983.  .5 ft

Collection of documents gathered at the World Assembly for Peace and Life Against Nuclear War which took place in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1983. 2,635 people representing 132 countries attended the Assembly. John Woodford attended as a representative of the Black Press Institute. Collection includes programs, reports from conference sessions, press Survey, children’s postcards – “The Voice of Czechoslovak Children Calling for Peace”, essay by John Woodford about the Black Press in the United States; “The Message of the Central Council of the Democratic Women’s Organization of Afghanistan on the Eve of the Convocation of the World Peace Assembly Addressed to the Women’s International Democratic Federation”, Dialogues; Appeal for Peace and Life Against Nuclear War, clippings, flyers, ephemera.

World Social Forum
Archive, 2001-2003, 2006.  .25 ft.
Newspapers, flyers, brochures, and other materials collected at the World Social Forums in Porto Alegre, Brazil. 

Wysocki, Sharon: Banned Books Exhibit.
Papers, 1995-1998. 4.5 linear ft.
Unpublished finding aid available in repository.

Social worker, writer, artist, activist and former Ann Arbor resident Wysocki (b. 1955), selected books that had been banned and embellished them with artwork. Each piece was an oil and assemblage work that rested on an easel. The artwork illustrates the reason the book was banned. The exhibit consists of twelve books as art. Wysocki chose books that people would find in high school libraries, such as The Diary of Anne Frank and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The exhibit opoened on March 4, 1996 at Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before it embarked on a national tour. Materials in the collection reflect Wysocki's views and those of various communities, on books and censorship. The collection consists of several types of media, including papers, books as art, book stands, video cassettes, photographs, and textile material.

Yelensky, Boris, 1889-1974.
Papers, 1939-1975. 158 items.
List of correspondents available.

Russian emigre anarchist. Chiefly concern the publication of his writings, the disposition of his papers and books, various anarchist friends and acquaintances, and the condition of the anarchist movement throughout the world. Comprise correspondence, largely from 1968-75, including one letter from Emma Goldman in 1939; essays, novels, and memoirs, including Prairie Queen by L. F. and R. G. Ruste (published: Millersburg, Mich. [Advance Print] 1943) and The Sunrise Cooperative Farm Community, 1933-1936 by J. B. Schmidt (never published?); and photos (19 of the Sunrise Community). The prose includes short essays and obituaries, particularly about other Russian anarchists; his novels Fatima and In the Shadow of Death , Love, and Life; and his memoirs of the Russian revolution, In the Social Storm. The papers are in English, French, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

Yellin, Ed and Jean/HUAC
Papers, 1948-2019. 4.5 linear ft.
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This collection consists of materials relating to the Yellins' legal battles against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) after Ed Yellin's refusal to testify on the basis of the First Amendment. The materials detail the effects on the Yellins' lives, and their later decision to publish a memoir about their experiences, titled In Contempt: Defending Free Speech, Defeating HUAC . The materials also document the progression of the case and subsequent appeals. The collection consists of five series: Correspondence, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Files, Newspaper Clippings, Research Files, and In Contempt Manuscript Drafts and Notes.

Yomen, Ben, 1911-
Artwork, 1941-1947.  20 items.

Artist and political activist born in 1911, in Malden, MA, raised and educated in Detroit, MI; married Rose Rosenfeld (U-M ’32) in 1935; taught art as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and began a decades-long career as a cartoonist for humor magazines, commercial advertising, and labor magazines, including AFL, CIO, Railroad Brotherhood, and UAW publications. Collection includes: "Now Get In and Fight" (1944); "We Both Want Jobs After the War" (1945); "Pep Rally" (1945); "Signing Up for Picket Duty" (1945); "A Rude Awakening" (1944); "Labor Defends Democracy" (1944); "Voice of Wall St." (1941); "Stoolpigeon" (1942); "Words of Wisdom" (1943); "Tenant Mass Meeting" (1945); "Booted Out for Good" (1944); "Front Pay" (1941); "Removing His Memory" (1940); "No Hitch-Hikers" (1944); "Thanksgiving Day" (1944); "Truman’s Housing Program" (1946); "Consumers’ Co-op" (1946); "The Employer’s Ball" (1947); "Spring Offensive" (1942); "The Progressive Miner" (1947).

Young, Art, 1866-1943.
Papers, 1878-1945, 4 linear ft. 
Finding aid available.

One of the most reknowned editorial cartoonists and authors of the 20th century, these papers document Young's exchanges with various publishers, his involvement in socialist politics, and his personal views. Includes personal papers, autobiographical notes, photographs, legal notices, correspondence, working sketches, notes, scapbooks, political cartoons, and publications.    

Young, Marguerite V. (1908-1995)
Papers. 2.25 linear ft.

Complete drafts of Marguerite Young's biography of Eugene V. Debs, "Harp Song for a Radical: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs," which was written and researched over 30 years, and heavily edited for publication by Knopf in 1999.  Also includes additional drafts, correspondence, clippings, dissertation off-print and ephemera relating to "Harp Song".

 

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Last modified: 11/15/2023