Library Resources: Primary Sources: Activism

Includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, posters, and ephemera covering a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, economic, and cultural issues and movements in the United States and throughout the world.

This project preserves records and memories of activism in the United States that supported the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s.

Digitized pamphlets published by various groups before and during the prohibition era, ending with the 21st amendment in 1933.

Offers oral histories, newspaper clippings, local government documents and photographs related to Baltimore's riots following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Digitized collection of letters, writings and drawings.

Oral histories (with interview transcripts) and digital photographs of people who participated in the civil rights movement.

Brings together hundreds of firsthand accounts of how religious convictions played a multifaceted role in the Civil Rights Movement.

Presents primary documents and visual material to "help expand knowledge and understanding about the historical experience of people with disabilities in the United States."

Political cartoons drawn for the New York newspaper PM by author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1941-1943.

Examines selected materials from the Chicago Historical Society's Haymarket Affair Digital Collection. The Dramas of Haymarket interprets these materials and places them in historical context, drawing on many other items from the Historical Society's extensive resources.

Sampling of photographs and primary historical documents from the Emma Goldman Papers, plus finding aids and links to other resources. Goldman (1869-1940) was a major figure in the history of radical movements in the U.S.

Documents the historical formation and cultural foundations of the movement to conserve and protect America's natural heritage. The collection consists of Federal statutes and Congressional resolutions, additional legislative documents, excerpts from the Congressional Globe and the Congressional Record, Presidential proclamations, prints and photographs, historic manuscripts and motion pictures.

Primary source accounts from those who worked with Cesar Chavez to build the farmworker movement (1962-1993).

Presents images of key documents and artifacts in their historical context. Includes trial documents, broadsides, photos and more.

Selections documenting the work and activities of Chicano activist Herman Baca and the Committee on Chicano Rights.

The Labadie Collection is the oldest research collection of radical history in the United States, documenting a wide variety of international social protest movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is named for anarchist and labor organizer Joseph Antoine Labadie (1850-1933). Available here are digitized pamphlets and photos from the collection; some are restricted to University of Michigan users only.

Documenting and saving the digital evidence and stories from worldwide Occupy protests that began in September 2011.

This collection shows images of political buttons addressing issues of anarchism, civil liberties (with an emphases on racial minorities), socialism, communism, colonialism and imperialism, American labor history through the 1930s, the IWW, the Spanish Civil War, sexual freedom, women's liberation, gay liberation, the underground press, and student protest.

More than 2000 letters, books, newspapers, and other material from the Post family, dating 1817-1918. Primary subjects are abolition, women’s suffrage and Spiritualism.

Includes documents from Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Black Panther Party, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and several similar groups.

Provides an overview of the temperance movement; includes photographs, political cartoons, charts, graphs, and excerpts from primary documents.

This site documents various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, focusing specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Items range from radical theoretical writings to humorous plays to the minutes of an actual grassroots group.