Radical and Labor Songbook Collection

This collection is comprised of radical song books, music sheets, periodical issues and broadsides spanning the period ca. 1850 to 1990, with primary emphasis on the period 1900-1940. It includes rare pieces (such as numerous early editions of the I.W.W. "Little Red Songbook") as well as ephemeral song-sheets and song-books. Periodicals represented in the collection include "Sing Out!", "Broadside: the Topical Song Magazine", and "Promenade," an influential leftist folk-dance mimeo. The collection is overwhelmingly comprised of American imprints (including several foreign-language works printed in America), but also includes some presentative British publications. The core of the collection was put together by musicologist Ronald D. Cohen, and formed the basis for his monograph, Work and Sing: A History of Occupational and Labor Union Songs in the United States (Oakland: 2010). Approximately 200 more items were added to this core to create the current collection.