Collecting The Left

COLLECTING THE LEFT. The collecting of materials associated with labor history and other aspects of the American Left has grown rapidly in popularity since the 1980s. The rise in interest has been driven not only by institutions but by a loose and lively network of individual collectors who have assumed real importance in preserving and assessing materials otherwise almost certain to be lost or misunderstood.

In past generations, many rank-and-file left-wingers kept a box of favorite buttons commemorating political candidates, demonstrations, and other causes. Photos of families and friends, and since the late 1960s often enough a selection of posters, filled out many a personal collection. A handful of institutions, especially the Smithsonian Museum, the Tamiment Library of New York University and the (now defunct) Museum of American Political Life at the University of Hartford amassed and cataloged quantities of such materials.

The graphic and decorative qualities of these materials brighten and elucidate a monograph or textbook, bringing to life for young readers in particular a feeling for both the famed and the otherwise anonymous members of the Left. Some of these recaptured images also grace museum exhibits. Since 1989 the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution legitimized union and radical material with the establishment of the Scott Molloy Labor History collection. Including almost 10,000 items of every description, from matchbook covers to a homemade textile banner to free Eugene Debs written in Hungarian from Vermont. A Smithsonian announcement explained that the new material "establishes the nation's first major research and exhibition collection of artifacts centered on the history of workers' organization in a public institution."

Behind these recognized achievements in collecting has existed a more subtle development of popular interest. During the 1980s, what may be called a transgenerational network arose through individual collecting, often at flea markets, from aged family members, or a range of personal contacts. These materials include photos, broadsides, rare magazines and newspapers, sheet music, trade cards, banners, pinback buttons, ribbon-badges, and union-labeled items as well as the personal effects of notables.

Growing interest especially in labor and working-class ephemera, from train workers’ lanterns to the “union-made” brewery or cigarmakers’ emblems, alerted many collectors to the widespread public curiosity about the material culture of the Left. The excitement aroused by the 1994 auction of a large collection of materials collected by Bruce Rubenstein prompted amused commentaries in the mainstream press including Time magazine, as well as wider interest among would-be collectors. Advertisements in the left-wing press and publicized auctions-by-mail led to a small business for some but a hobbyist pursuit for many more.

Collecting, carried on by an institution or individual, is not simply amassing. A well-thought-out collection adds substance to academic and public discourse. Collections of radical Americana help both to define historical events through the eyes of participants and to bridge the gap between generations. Some collectors concentrate on the ephemera intended for immediate use and then discarded. Others collect more lasting (and expensive) materials such as autographed books, limited editions, manuscripts, lithographs, and other artwork. The “tireless bloodhound,” as Oliver Barrett, the great collector of Lincolniana, described himself, exists in networks, in flea markets and at estate sales, and often circulates “want” lists among dealers. Materials related to the exciting personalities, underdogs, tragic and cataclysmic events, and literary and artistic achievements of the past inevitably turn up as “lucky” finds. Multiplied many times over, they offer a priceless resource to the student of the American Left.

Not everyone in the Left has embraced collecting such details of the past. Like so much else not directly related to the class struggle or party-building, collecting has often dismissed by various Left party leaders as a waste of time. Daniel De Leon, leader of the Socialist Labor Party, humorously described Charles Southern, author of detail-heavy Horace Greeley and Other Pioneers of American Socialism, as a "250-pound perambulating scrap book and historic junk shop.”

Buhle, Paul, and Edmund B. Sullivan. Images of American Radicalism. Hanover, Mass.: Christopher Publishing House, 1998.

Molloy, Scott. “Labor Artifacts,” in Peter Benes, ed. New England Collectors and Collections. The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife. Annual Proceedings, 2004. Boston: Boston University, 2006, pp. 134-52.

Rubenstein, Harry. “The Molloy Collection.” Labor’s Heritage. Vol 2, #2(April 1990).