Research Guides: Anarchist Collections in the Tamiment Library: Archival Collections

Notable Anarchist-Related Archival Collections

John Nicolas Beffel Papers, 1909-1970 (TAM 055)
John Nicholas Beffel (1887 1973) was a radical journalist, publicist, and editor.
Alexander Berkman Papers, 1917-1919 (TAM 067)
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist and author, and companion of anarchist Emma Goldman.
Murray Bookchin Papers, ca. 1950-2003 (TAM 160)
Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921-July 30, 2006) was a libertarian socialist, political philosopher, speaker and writer.
Bureau of Public Secrets Records, 1961-1978 (TAM 097)
The Bureau of Public Secrets was formed in the early part of 1973 (preceded by "The Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous," "Contradiction," and "1044") was a self-described "neo-realist/quasi-situational" organization aimed at criticizing existing leftist movements and distributed publications mostly in the San Francisco Area.
Sam Dolgoff Papers, 1874-1991 (TAM 093)
Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990) was an anarchist author and editor born Sholem Dolgopolsky in Byelorussia. He emigrated to the United States prior to World War I and joined the Young Peoples Socialist League in 1917 and the IWO in 1922.
French Anarchist Autograph Collection, 1874-1928 (TAM 013)
This is a collection of 25 signed letters, all but four in French, by European anarchists, mostly French.
Emma Goldman Papers, 1924-1940 (TAM 012)
Emma Goldman was an anarchist, feminist, writer, publisher of Mother Earth, companion of Alexander Berkman, and author of Anarchism and Other Essays, Living My Life, and My Disillusionment in Russia.
The Emma Goldman Papers Microfilm Edition (Bobst MF 3648)
Writings, correspondence, and government documents from the Goldman Papers.
McNamara Defense Committee Records, 1911 (TAM 033)
A New York based committee formed in 1911 to rally support for John J. and James B. McNamara prior to their confessing to dynamiting the Los Angeles Times Building in 1910.
Max Nomad Papers, 1902-1967 (TAM 017)
Max Nomad (1881-1973) philosophic anarchist, author and educator, who also wrote under the pseudonym Max Norton was born in 1881 in Buczacz, Poland.
David Thoreau Wieck Papers, 1921-1996 (TAM 227)
David Thoreau Wieck was the son of Agnes Burns Wieck who wrote for the Illinois Miner and worked as an organizer for the Progressive Miners of America. By 1936, he had become, in his own words, a "dissident bolshevik," much more enamored of the anarcho-syndicalists then fighting in Spain.
Isadore Wisotsky Autobiographical Typescript (TAM 071)
Isidore Wisotsky (1895-1970) was born circa 1895 and immigrated from Latvia to the U.S. with his family when he was fourteen. He worked in the garment industry, became an anarchist, was involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, and became a friend of Norman Thomas.

Collections on Microfilm

The Tamiment Library holds approximately 10,000 reels of microfilm containing newspapers and journals, pamphlet collections, monographs, personal papers and organizational records. The archival collections on microfilm consist of filmed editions of Tamiment's own collections and microfilmed editions of archives held by other libraries.

Consult the BobCat record, collection finding aid, and/or collections list to determine if a collection is available on microfilm.

Email NYU Special Collections at special.collections@nyu.edu for more information.

Finding Archival Collections in Tamiment

Collections List / Finding Aids

Browse a full list of archival collections in Tamiment, including personal papers, organizational records, oral history, photograph, and printed ephemera collections and link to finding aids, where available.

Search Tamiment Finding Aids

Find archival collections by searching on personal or organizational names or subject keywords.
Use the search box on the left to search our archival collections through the online finding aids using keywords from your research topic.
Once you’ve found a collection that you’d like to access, write down the collection name, number, and box numbers you’re interested in. For example, “Alger Hiss Family Papers TAM.314, Boxes 1, 2, & 3”. Bring your list to the Tamiment when you visit us or email us at tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu to get more information on how to view them. Please note that some materials are held offsite and may take from two business days to a week to arrive for your use.

Printed Ephemera Collections with Material on Anarchism

Tamiment holds more than 40 separate collections of printed ephemera which contain flyers, broadsides, leaflets, clippings, reports, pamphlets, catalogs, brochures, bibliographies, press releases, programs, and other materials.

Among them are separate collections on:

which contain alphabetical runs of files, some of which relate to anarchism, anarchists, and anarchist organizations.

You may browse a selected list of anarchist organizations that are included in PE 036, the Organizations collection, on our website and see the finding aid for the collection for complete details.

The Printed Ephemera Research Guide contains additional information about the collections.

Web Archives

The Tamiment Library Web Archive (Labor and the Left) consists of an evolving set of individual topically-based web archives, each containing a steadily growing number of periodically captured and securely archived websites created by labor or left entities (organizations and individuals). Archived copies of web sites are first made available six months after the date of capture.
The Anarchism Web Archive contains periodically archived websites of entities that identify with or are inspired by anarchist ideas, with a concentration on contemporary anarchism and in particular New York-based anarchism.