As the culmination of a two year project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), I'm pleased to announce that the Daily Worker and Daily World Photographs Collection and the Daily Worker and Daily World Negatives Collection are now available for research at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.

Together, these collections comprise the former photograph morgue of the Daily Worker and its successor newspapers, including the Daily World and the People's World. As the voice of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), these papers attempted to speak to the broad left-wing community in the United States, including labor, civil rights, and peace activists. Consequently, the photographs and negatives in these collections depict not only important individuals and events in the CPUSA and/or Left political movements, but also a wide array of events and people not affiliated with these movements. The collections are also notable for the many images of social conditions and daily life in New York City, particularly in neighborhoods such as the South Bronx, Harlem and Chinatown.

For questions about research use and reproduction of images from the collection, please contact the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or (212) 998-2630.

This post comes from Hester Goodwin, graduate student in NYU's Archives and Public History program. For the past year, Hester has been aiding in processing the CPUSA records at Tamiment Library.

Processing a huge and complex collection like the CPUSA Records is a project which comes with equally huge and complex challenges. Recently we’ve been struggling to form a clear picture of the Party’s organizational structure, and what I’ve been calling the Organization Department is the perfect example. The Organization Department was in charge of implementing policy made by the CPUSA Central Committee, so clearly it played an important role in the operation of the Party, and generated a massive amount of material. This is all wonderful news for the researcher…if we can figure out what to call it.

We have seen the “Org. Department” referred to as either a “department” or a “commission,” and sometimes both, even in items written by the same person. Usages vary; some individual party members seem to believe there is a difference between a department and a commission, and others seem to use the terms interchangeably. Furthermore, there are mysterious references to an “Organization Bureau,” an ominous-sounding body separate from the Organization Department/Commission.

Information Overload by Flickr user Tonz

All of this highlights the challenges faced by archivists processing large, complex collections including materials from many individuals and offices. Institutions always have their own internal jargon, and while the meaning of documents may be clear to insiders, it can be nearly incomprehensible to anyone else. Jillian has created a diagram summarizing what we know now, and we have been combing pamphlets, copies of the CPUSA Constitution, and other administrative records to better understand the role of departments and commissions in the Party. What strategies do you use to combat this problem? How can archivists advise organizations creating their own archives, to prevent this from being an issue in the first place?

This post comes from Daniel Reisner, a graduate student at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science. Daniel interned at the Taminent Library this past spring semester, dividing his time between helping me process the CPUSA records and helping Hillel process the Daily Worker photograph morgue.

During the recently concluded spring semester, I was fortunate enough to serve as an intern at the Tamiment Library, assisting on two projects connected with the Communist Party USA papers. The first project involved processing a small portion of the collection’s administrative files. The second concerned identifying and describing items from the Daily Worker/Daily World photograph and negative collection. Like many students entering the archival field, I previously studied history. My experiences working on this collection were a reminder of the importance of preserving the past and provided an education about the hard behind-the-scenes work archivists perform to make collections usable and intellectually coherent. When completed, the arrangement and description of the CPUSA papers will enable researchers to provide context and life to people and movements from a different era.

Part of the CPUSA collection consisted of information chronicling the Party’s relationship with the FBI, in particular, COINTELPRO or “Counterintelligence Program”. From 1956-1971, the FBI authorized electronic bugging, misinformation campaigns, media exposure, the planting of informants and other tactics designed to monitor and sow discord among Party members. The CPUSA papers contain internal memos from the FBI obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that detail these efforts and include proposals for future operations, progress reports of ongoing campaigns and evidence of their work. The files are arranged by field office, so researchers can get an idea about the activity of the CPUSA across the country, despite the many redactions.

When I initially read through some of the reports, my first reaction was that many of the FBI’s methods, such as mailing anonymous letters alerting neighbors to the Communists next door, or letting a Party member know that a fellow traveler was having an affair with their spouse, seemed rather silly and minor. Additional efforts included sending newspaper articles about anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union to Jewish Party Members. The CPUSA papers also included the Party’s reaction to suspected Government intrusion and its efforts to piece together COINTELPRO initiatives after the program was exposed to the public. These documents add context to the FOIA files and demonstrate just how serious and effective the FBI’s program actually was. Party members were expelled erroneously, planned rallies were cancelled and resources were wasted. The Party was either made to look like a threat or ineffectual, which had a negative effect on Party morale and their ability to recruit new members. The documents also show how proficient the FBI was in sending anonymous letters so they could not be traced back to them, planting stories in the press and pressuring people to inform.

The FOIA files are interesting in their own right, but the revelations of how the CPUSA reacted provides unique context and insight into the historical period to show how each side viewed the other and themselves. The FBI considered their actions as necessary to disrupt a serious internal threat to the country’s security, while the CPUSA interpreted the FBI’s actions as unconstitutional abuses of power aimed at curbing lawful dissent and association. The CPUSA papers shed light on an important period in American history and should provide researchers plenty of opportunities to expand our current understanding of the Party and its place in political history.

I would like to thank Jillian and Hillel, for their patience and help during my internship. I am excited to see the finished product of all their hard work in the near future.

This week's post comes from Caroline Partamian, who has been working as my Archival Assistant for the past few months. I hope you'll enjoy her thought-provoking post on the identities of Daily Worker Photographers, which in part follows up on my post of last week regarding the process of discovering some of Weegee's photographs in the Daily Worker Photographs Collection.

In my months of working as an Archival Assistant at NYU’s Tamiment Library, sorting through the photo morgue of the Daily Worker newspaper, the hand behind many of the photographs I’ve come across has both intrigued and escaped me. Many of the envelopes carrying the negatives in the collection are inscribed with the names of a few mysterious photographers who use initials or single names, such as P.A., Pete, and Art, in part due to the intense political surveillance at the time. Today we still recognize names like Gerda Taro and Robert Capa as forerunners of photojournalism (and no doubt this honor is well-deserved), but those involved with the Daily Worker are long forgotten and overlooked. The concealed identities of these photographers barely provide any context for the future researchers of who these individuals are, along with any notion of their personalities, aspirations, and work outside of the Daily Worker.

The notion of Cornell Capa’s “concerned photographer” comes to mind while processing the Daily Worker collection. The “concerned photographer” is used to describe the individual who demonstrates in their work a humanitarian impulse to use pictures to educate and change the world, not just to record it. The will of the Daily Worker photographers to be published without recognition, I think, is a great indicator of the concerned photographer, proving a person’s devotion to capturing important events in our history. Thousands of photographs documenting Communist and labor organizations’ activities were published without any clear attribution of who the composers behind the photographs are, and remain as such.

"Pete" (may also be known as "P. A."), Daily Worker Photographer, undated.

As I began to come to terms with the fact that individuals like P.A., Pete and Art would most likely be reduced to cryptic references in the Tamiment Daily Worker Finding Aid, the discovery of a unique series of photos in a folder entitled “Floods” led to the revelation of the true identity of one of these photographers. Though he may never have planned on being officially recognized for his photos of the events involving the 1937 Ohio-Mississippi River Flood published on the third page of the February 5th, 1937 issue of the newspaper, the now well-known Weegee, previously known as Arthur Fellig, is recognized this week as one of the Daily Worker’s concerned photographers.

We can largely attribute this find to Weegee’s current fame and wide accessibility to his body of work. Admittedly, this photograph becomes of interest to us because we have a greater knowledge of Weegee and his extensive cannon. Would this photo of seamen at Penn Station be forgotten if not for the fact that it was taken by “A. Fellig?” Probably, yes. At what point does a photo cross the line from recyclable news into memorable work? Weegee made a name for himself, stamping the back of his prints “Credit Photo by Weegee the Famous,” releasing the very well publicized book Naked City, which showcased his photographs of sensational crimes and NYC late night life, as well as taking photographs of beautiful women like Maila Nurmi (Vampira).

Pete and Art are mysterious individuals I would love to know more about, but likely never will. Because of Weegee’s signature name, we are able to attribute more credit to “A. Fellig” than “P.A.” However, our findings should not end here. There are many amazing photographs in the collection from talented photographers who may never, but should, be recognized, if not for their contributions to the Daily Worker but also for their contributions to photojournalism. Who knows, perhaps the work of Pete and Art could prove as significant as Weegee’s some day.

My hope is that anonymous individuals in the collection do get recognized by future researchers, even if they should remain anonymous. Though we may never have an idea of these photographers’ aspirations in photojournalism or work outside of the newspaper, their lenses have captured important moments in our country’s history. Although they lack Weegee’s nominal fame, these photographers’ contributions to photojournalism and American history are without value.

While processing the Daily Worker/Daily World Photographs Collection a few months ago, I came across a series of photographs in a folder titled “Floods” showing injured sailors arriving at New York City’s Penn Station from an unspecified “flood area.”

I was intrigued by the photos because their visual style seemed different than most of the others I’d come across; they were less posed, employed unusual camera angles, and captured their subjects in the harsh light of a flash bulb.

Glancing at the back of one of the prints, I noticed the name “A. Fellig” written in the corner.

Some of you may know, as I happened to, that Arthur Fellig was the given name of the iconoclastic photographer Weegee, famous for his distinctive photographs of disasters, tragic deaths and other parts of the seamy underside of New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Could the A. Fellig who signed these photographs be this Arthur Fellig, aka Weegee? Had I just stumbled upon a number of previously undiscovered Weegee photographs?

I was able to contact Chris George, Imaging Technician at the International Center for Photography (ICP), who has been digitizing the ICP’s extensive Weegee archive and consequently is an expert on the collection. Chris responded to me immediately, confirming that Weegee had only started going by his pseudonym in 1937, and sending along a quotation from Weegee by Weegee: An Autobiography, which says, “One day I saw my pictures printed both in the Jewish Daily Forward and the Daily Worker. They had been sent out by the Hearst mat service.” These seemed to both be good signs, and I was optimistic that we would be able to confirm that these were indeed Weegee photos, even though Chris was unable to find matching negatives or any information relating to these photographs in the ICP’s collection.

While Chris was looking through ICP’s Weegee archive, I began to investigate whether or not these photographs had ever been published in the Daily Worker. One of the photographs had crop marks, indicating that it had at least been prepared for publication.

However, since none of the photographs were dated, tracking down the published photographs necessitated that we identify the event depicted in the photographs. At first, we thought that the flood referenced by the photos was the Great St. Patrick’s Day Flood which took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in March 1936. Michael Chui, my graduate archival assistant, looked through the microfilm of the Daily Worker from around that time, but did not find published versions of any of the photographs.

For a number of months, the investigation stalled, but got a new lease on life when Caroline Partamian, a graduate student in NYU’s Museum Studies department, began to work as my archival assistant. As it happened, Caroline had previously worked with the Weegee archive at ICP, and was able to identify the handwriting on the back of the prints as Weegee’s. She was also able to correctly identify the flood as the Ohio and Great Miami River Flood of 1937, and found the published picture, which appeared in the Daily Worker on February 5th, 1937. Unfortunately, the published photo was not credited.

And that’s where we are now. While we couldn’t find absolute verification (a matching negative or other attributed print) all indications seem to be that the photos were indeed taken by Weegee while he was still known as Arthur Fellig. If they are indeed his, this is a historically and artistically significant discovery. I’m not sure that it changes Weegee’s legacy in any substantial way, but it certainly casts the Daily Worker’s process of image-making, photographers associated with the paper, and the visual culture of the Communist Party of the USA in a different light.

All photographs in this entry come from the Daily Worker/Daily World Photographs Collection at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, with the exception of the published photograph, which was reproduced from the microfilm of the Daily Worker.

Long before there was Photoshop, news media used other means to modify photographs to match their message they wanted to convey. Compare the two images of a group of defendants on trial in 1963 under the McCarran Internal Security Act from the Daily Worker/Daily World Photographs Collection.

Standing, left to right: Louis Weinstock, William L. Patterson, Burt Nelson, Roscoe Proctor, Arnold Johnson, Albert "Mickey" Lima.
Seated, left to right: Betty Gannett Tormey, Dorothy Healey, Miriam Friedlander.

Last week I was fortunate to be able to attend the conference Women in the Archives: Organizing Knowledge, cosponsored by Brown's Women Writers Project and the Pembroke Center's Feminist Theory Archives. This is my favorite kind of archives conference: one that brings together archivists with researchers from a variety of disciplines. It expands the discourse around archives for everyone involved, and it also provides an interesting window on what the people who are using our collections are thinking about.

The program was diverse, and almost every speaker was fascinating, so it’s hard to focus on just one or two presentations. However, a recurring theme for both scholars and archivists was the work that needs to be done to make present those who are absent from the archive, whether they be lesbian activists whose lives make up only a small part of a LGBT collection built and nurtured by men; the female donors behind men’s personal papers in archives; or the wives and secretaries of creators whose role in their work is not described. More – and more transparent – description was presented repeatedly as an antidote to this invisibility. However, I wonder how we can reconcile this demand for more description on the one hand, and the push within the archives profession for less processing and less detailed description on the other?

A related theme emerged over the two days: that of the difficulty of preserving and describing identity, which attendees agreed is shifting and ephemeral, changing over time. It was suggested that, as archivists, our descriptions need to evolve with scholarship. But a question that came up for me in response to this and other comments was: which scholarship?

The archivist for the Feminist Theory Archives, Amy Greer, made a comment after Mary Caldera’s presentation that fewer researchers are approaching her for the papers of individuals, and instead are interested in movements and trends, something that I notice in my own work with scholars. A group of historians sitting near me took issue with this, describing how in fact History as a discipline is increasingly concerned with the lives of individuals. Amy clarified that while she has witnessed this focus on individual lives, researchers are not telling their stories as often through the papers of individuals. What struck me about this exchange was the underlying assumption that historians are our default researchers. In fact, at Fales researchers are made up of a diverse mix of historians, literary scholars, art theorists, documentary filmmakers, gender studies scholars, artists, performance studies scholars, and many others. So to return to my earlier question: if we as archivists choose to adapt our practices to current scholarship, which scholarship do we choose?

Over the course of the conference we addressed many areas of archival practice and research, including digitization, metadata, custodial history, access, teaching, and authorship. But by the end of the two days, what I began to feel was missing was an explicit discussion of selection and appraisal. This was particularly true when we were discussing digital archives, where the primary problems most people identified were description and access. As so often in discussions about digital archives, I found myself wondering, What about the vast majority of archival materials in our collections that are not digitized, and to be honest likely never will be? While we debate about the need for more, and more complex, description of the already-digitized, and as resources are redirected to these projects and away from basic processing, don’t the majority of the materials under our care risk becoming less and less accessible? And if so, in the context of a culture where - increasingly - if it's not online it effectively doesn't exist, doesn't the selection of materials for digitization become the most powerful point of intervention in the quest to make sure previously absent voices are heard?

The idea of seduction came up a few times over the course of the conference: some attendees were seduced by the virtual world of data visualizations, while others (myself included) are still enamored with the messy, tangible world of archival documents and objects. But the idea arose in the context of the need for researchers and archivists to establish dialogues with each other as well. As archivist Angela Todd of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation said while talking about the challenges of locating archival materials in a world of limited description: “We have to sort of seduce each other to work together.” Conferences like this, which bring together archivists and scholars from a myriad of fields, are one way to address the question which scholarship? It seems to me the answer must always be: Many.

Lisa Darms
Senior Archivist, Fales Library

I’d like to point you to the website created by Roxanne Shirazi, a graduate student in Pratt Institute’s Library and Information Science program. To fulfill the requirements of her practicum course, Roxanne interned at Tamiment Library during the Fall 2010 semester under the supervision of Donna Davey, Tamiment Librarian. Her internship focused on processing backlog and new additions to the Tamiment Newspaper Collection and the Tamiment Pamphlet Collection. I highly recommend reading through the journal of her daily work and observations as well as her final evaluation essay. Roxanne uses her experience at Tamiment to reflect on the convergence of archives and libraries, and offers an honest assessment of how Tamiment is dealing with challenges typical of most special collections libraries (bureaucracy, space limitations, equipment, funding, patron expectations, etc.).

BLURRING BOUNDARIES IN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS BY ROXANNE SHIRAZI

Thanks to Roxanne for all of her hard work at Tamiment! Like most academic institutions, NYU Libraries benefit greatly from the skill and dedication of interns and student assistants and we appreciate their enthusiasm and effort.

On Saturday, December 4, I attended the inaugural Archival Education Institute, presented by the National Archives at New York City, the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART), and the Association of Teachers of Social Studies (ATSS)/United Federation of Teachers (UFT) with funding from MetLife. The Institute sought to introduce archivists and teachers who want to use primary sources in the classroom and show both how to select “teachable” documents and incorporate them into lesson plans. Archivist participants were asked to bring with them copies of documents from their collections that related to the theme of human and civil rights.

To introduce the Institute, members of the planning committee (Ryan Donaldson, Christopher Zarr, and myself) explained what an archive is and how archivists select, process, and describe records. Julie Daniels (New York State Archives) and Kristi Fragnoli (College of St. Rose) served as the Institute’s facilitators. They brought a wealth of expertise to the table, and their energy was infectious. They distributed photocopies of documents to participants, urging them to mine even the simplest documents—like the impassioned letters by students urging the Army not to cut Elvis Presley’s hair—for their educational potential. As an archivist and education professor familiar with New York State teaching standards, they also tailored the documents they distributed to match social studies standards.

Christopher Zarr, of the National Archives, described NARA’s extensive online resources for K-12 teachers and took participants on a tour of the facility.

For the University Archives’ contribution, I photocopied several articles from a student newspaper, the Washington Square College Bulletin, which discussed whether or not an African-American football player, Len Bates, would or should play in an away game against the University of Missouri in 1940. Articles written by the student staff—both news articles and editorial opinions—reflected different points of view on the issue, with some students calling for the student not to play, citing fears for his safety, and with others urging the University to boycott the game and, in the words of one headline, “Break Sports Relations With Intolerant Jim Crow Colleges.”

An article about an American Student Union meeting was included for its mention of Bayard Rustin, then a student at CUNY and a leader of that chapter of the ASU. A guest editorial by the then-President of the University, Harry Woodburn Chase, stated the administration’s opinion: the game would be played, and Bates would not travel with the team.

A cover article printed several months later described a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt to the campus to speak about racial equality. The authors of the article described Ms. Roosevelt’s wardrobe and mode of transportation, which they would have been less likely to do had she been a male speaker.

To me, these stories presented varied points of view and issues that were ripe for discussion. But would my enthusiasm for these documents, and the story I heard them tell, work in the classroom?

The teachers I spoke with did see a potentially useful narrative in the articles I’d collected. Several of them asked what other topics we might have information on, and how quickly we’d be able to provide them with additional documents. I should also have known, but was nonetheless surprised, the extent to which local and federal standards dictate what should be taught at each grade level. Even if you put together a series of documents perfectly calibrated to resonate with eighth-grade students, if these documents didn’t cover a particular period of history, they cannot be worked into the social studies curriculum for that grade.

Most exciting for me, though, was realizing that for these teachers, archival materials WERE a way to engage their students. And far from shying away from dated language or complex situations, all of the teachers I spoke with proclaimed their students ready to handle the complex vocabularies and questions present in the documents.

Interested in learning more? Did you attend and want to share your experiences? A follow-up meeting to discuss the Institute and begin planning the next one will be held this Saturday, January 29, from 10 am to 12 pm at the National Archives at New York City. If you’re in the area, RSVP to outreach@nycarchivists.org by Wednesday, January 26.

--Photographs of the Institute by Johanna O'Toole.

As archivists we deal in presenting facts. We try not to personalize or interpret archival material. Instead we offer these primary source artifacts, whether they are paper-based documents or original media, to scholars so that they may study, scrutinize, and ultimately create scholarship.

Recently a short, 4-minute edit of a larger film-work by late artist David Wojnarowicz was removed from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) after it was deemed objectionable by certain religious groups. An avalanche of inaccuracies sprang forth as mainstream media, bloggers, and other news outlets sent out their reports. Many of these were based on assumption and interpretation, and many (frankly) haven’t a clue what they are talking about.

The film in question is titled A Fire in My Belly, a 13-minute, Super 8mm, silent “film in progress” from 1986-87, which was never completed. The original film material resides with the Fales Library and is a part of the David Wojnarowicz Papers, which comprises over 128 linear feet of archival material, encompassing personal journals, photographs, correspondence, objects, over 200 video tapes, 145 audio tapes, and 80 film elements.

The 4-minute edit for the NPG exhibition was created (with the permission of the artist’s Estate) from a 7-minute segment of A Fire in My Belly found on another film reel in Wojnarowicz’s collection. It is believed Wojnarowicz is to be credited with the editing of this 7-minute segment. The shorter, 4-minute edit shown at the NPG was created by the exhibition curators with an added audio track taken (with the Estate’s permission) from a 1989 ACT-UP demonstration; the audiocassette of this event is from Wojnarowicz’s Papers. In other words, the short edit of A Fire in My Belly was a “re-creation.” What was shown at the NPG was a small portion of a larger film with a soundtrack added by someone other than the original artist.

Confused yet? Wait.

Posted on YouTube, on December 12, 2007, was the 4:10-minute segment of A Fire in my Belly with a soundtrack by Diamanda Galas. Publisher Semiotext(e) is listed on YouTube as having posted this “version,” which was also seen in the 1989 Rosa von Praunheim film Silence = Death. This did not come from Fales.

So now we have many “versions” out there – all adding to the confusion. The “version” of A Fire in my Belly that was removed by the NPG was the shorter, 4-minute edit. In this “version” there was one 11-second shot of ants crawling on a crucifix. Those 11-seconds were what caused the controversy and ultimate removal of the film from the NPG exhibition. Many institutions have been screening the “complete” 13-minute version with the additional 7-minute segment (which can be see here). Many have been stating that this is what was censored. It was not. It was a four-minute “re-edit” taken from the 7-minute segment that was censored by the NPG. These are the facts.

- Brent Phillips, Media Specialist and Processing Archivist, Fales Library