John Hay Library Strategic Collecting Directions
Strategic Collecting Direction
Ideology and Power
The Hay has established the Ideology and Power strategic direction to provide coherence and promote public access to more than 200 years of original material that documents the evolution of political, social, and religious ideologies and that sheds light on the complex ways in which ideology influences social and political power structures.Through this strategic direction, the Hay preserves, without endorsement or censure, material falling outside (and complicating) more mainstream political narratives that might otherwise have been absent from the historical record. This direction is anchored by the large and unparalleled Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda, whose creator sought to document the transmission of ideas across a spectrum of more than 30,000 militant, political, social, and religious groups in the United States from the 1940s to the end of the 20th century. The rich trove of printed material found in the Hall-Hoag Collection is complemented by archival collections curated in part through the Hay’s partnership with the Pembroke Center Archives. Notable examples provide deep insight into social reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, including Temperance, Women’s Liberation/Black feminism, sex workers rights, and community organizing; examples that reflect changes to the regulation and criminalization of alcohol, women’s bodies, and underground economies. The collections also highlight the varied and continually evolving reception of Marxist thought as manifested through anti-communist organizations like the John Birch Society and applied Marxism through groups like Wages for Housework and theorists like Silvia Fedrici, an intellectual leader in international autonomous Marxist feminism.
Strategic growth
The Hay will continue to collect material that reflects the full spectrum of ideology, but will emphasize collection growth that documents U.S. social, political, and religious conservatism, which are high-value topics for scholars and sparsely documented in research collections.
- Rise of the New Right
- Evangelical socio-political influences
- American gun rights movement
- American militia movement
The Hay will also focus collection growth in this area on issues related to the University’s priorities for integrative scholarship in the sciences.
Climate Change
- Climate change advocacy and opposition
Collections as Data
& Health and History
- Mass incarceration
- The “war on drugs”
- Recreational drug legalization
- Vaccination
- Disability rights
- Mental health
- Sex trafficking opposition
- Sex work legalization
- Community organizing
Ideology and Power Anchor Collections
Adolf Hitler’s Personal Library: Approximately 80 books retrieved from Hitler’s bunker by Colonel Albert Aronson in May of 1945.
COYOTE RI records, Pembroke Center Archives: This collection contains the organizational records of COYOTE Rhode Island, a group of sex workers, former sex workers, trafficking victims, and allies, who advocate for policies that promote the health and safety of people involved in the sex industry. Materials include administrative records; special project files such as the COYOTE-RI Impact Survey and Sex Workers Outreach Project pen pal letters; subject files regarding other advocacy organizations; public records of court cases, arrests, and legislation relating to prostitution; and informational zines and booklets.
Hall-Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Propaganda: Contains documents representing a broad spectrum of militant political, social and religious dissent in the United States, from the post-World War II period to the present. The Collection currently exceeding 168,000 items emanating from over 5,000 organizations, constitutes the country’s largest research collection of right and left wing U.S. extremist groups, from 1950 to 1999. Organizations include the Christian Nationalist Crusade, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Chicago Seed.
John Birch Society records: The John Birch Society was formed to combat communism and promote various ultraconservative causes. It was named in honor of John Birch, an American Baptist missionary and United States Army intelligence officer who was killed by Chinese communists on August 25, 1945, making him, in the Society’s view, the first casualty of the Cold War. Although it does not release membership numbers, the Society was estimated to have between 60,000 and 100,000 members at the height of its activities during the 1960s. By 1985 the membership was estimated to be about 50,000.
Mike Vanderboegh papers: Michael Brian Vanderboegh (1953–2016) was a gun rights and Second Amendment activist. He was one of the founders of the Three Percenters movement pledged to protest and armed resistance against attempts to curtail constitutional rights to carry guns. During the 1990s he was the leader of a militia group called the Sons of Liberty. His papers detail his political and activism work relating to gun control, immigration, Operation Fast and Furious, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Rabbi Baruch Korff papers: Personal papers of Providence rabbi and Jewish communal activist who became known as “Nixon’s Rabbi” for his defense of the President during the Watergate affair. The collection includes materials pertaining to Korff’s efforts on behalf of European Jewry during World War II, through the creation of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, as well as his post-war advocacy for the State of Israel.
Silvia Federici papers, Pembroke Center Archives: This collection consists of the personal and professional papers of Silvia Federici, Italian-American scholar and activist; co-founder of the International Feminist Collective; and organizer with the International Wages for Housework campaign. Federici served as Professor Emerita of Social Sciences at Hofstra University where her research focused around questions of colonialism, capital punishment, immigration and emigration, globalization and global market inequality, food politics, elder care and capitalism, and academic freedom in Africa.
Zillah Einstein papers, Pembroke Center Archives: This collection consists of the papers of Zillah Eisenstein, scholar of feminist theory and Professor of Politics at Ithaca College from approximately 1966 to 2011. The collection documents Eisenstein’s personal life, academic career, and broad research interests. Topics include Eisenstein’s experience with breast cancer and her academic interests in global feminism, socialist feminism, neoliberalism and capitalist criticism, anti-racism, gender equality, cyberfeminism, the George W. Bush administration and the War on Terror.
The Womxn Project records, Pembroke Center Archives: A non-profit organization in Rhode Island focused on building a strong, feminist, community-based movement to further human rights of Rhode Islanders by using art and activism to advance education and social change. This collection contains records and items that were created to advocate for the passing of the Reproductive Privacy Act in 2019.
Community Organizing Archive (COA): The Community Organizing Archive comprises over 100 videotaped interviews with a diverse set of community organizers, and archival and manuscript papers of activists, including Brown alumni engaged in community organizing. Community organizing is a process of building powerful organizations across lines of faith, race, ethnicity, income, geography, age, and political outlook while developing the public skills of local leaders to effect social and economic change. By creating stable organizations accountable to their memberships, community organizing both mirrors and strengthens other democratic institutions, such as universal suffrage, honest elections, respect for the rights and autonomy of minorities, and the rule of law. The COA was organized in 2006 by Brown alumni Bob Cohen (1968), Jim Dickson (1968), and Ken Galdston (1968) as a joint project of the University Library and the Swearer Center for Public Service. The COA is particularly strong in the interests of marginalized people, including but not limited to: affordable housing, better jobs, improved schools, racial equity, immigrant rights, access to healthcare, disability rights, environmental justice, and transportation.