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Welcome to H-Labor, a member of H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine. H-labor is particularly interested in fostering international discussion and colaboration on labor history topics. It also recognizes that teaching the history of workers entails maintaining some knowledge of working people and their unions today.

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Filson Historical Society Frances Ingram Papers

Eric Willey's picture
Submitted by Eric Willey on Friday, February 28, 2014

For scholars interested in researching the history of child labor, The Filson Historical Society holds the Frances Ingram papers.

Early American Marxism (14-08)

Tim Davenport's picture
Submitted by Tim Davenport on Sunday, February 23, 2014

Early American Marxism website • www.marxisthistory.org/

Weekly Update no. 14-08 • February 23, 2014. 

A bountiful bouquet of 21 new files, the big majority dealing with various aspects of the understudied 1934-38 party crisis of the Socialist Party of America. 

 

Early American Marxism (14-07)

Tim Davenport's picture
Submitted by Tim Davenport on Sunday, February 16, 2014

Early American Marxism website

www.marxisthistory.org/

New Files Update no. 14-07 • February 16, 2014.

Ten new files.

Primary attention this week is on the establishment of the Social Democratic Federation of the United States of America, the Old Guard faction's parallel national organization to the Socialist Party of America that was established in 1937 and eventually reunified with a much-more-conservative Socialist Party in 1957.

Re: Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party?

Christopher Phelps's picture
Submitted by Christopher Phelps on Monday, February 10, 2014

Progressive Labor (PL, PLP) was the first American Maoist group and could indeed possibly be useful as a point of contrast, but Revolutionary Union (RU) did not derive from PL. RU came out of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) part of SDS, which was directly arrayed against PL. 

RYM had two parts. RYM I was Weatherman, and we all know what happened there.  RYM II included a lot of "party building" and "pre-party formation" groups - and that is where RU was located and is what Max Elbaum writes about well. 

Re: Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party

Jon Bekken's picture
Submitted by Jon Bekken on Monday, February 10, 2014

There is of course the Kasama Project, comprised largely of people expelled from RCP in recent years, or who quit as a result. It includes many people who were quite prominent in the organization, and who likely have documents and recollections of the early days.  An earlier split was the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, which later merged into FRSO.

The Kasama folks try to project themselves as open to reflection, many having given decades of their life to a rather unlikely proletarian leader. It seems likely to me that several might be willing to share their recollections and their materials with someone who was sympathetic to the larger objectives they were trying to pursue.

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