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Socialist Labor Party Records on Microfilm

 Collection
Identifier: 5168 mf

Scope and Contents

Records of the National Executive Committee include one volume of minutes (1889-1891) in German; five volumes of outgoing correspondence (1883-1892), primarly in German and English, with some letters in French, largely concerning routine Party business and including an inventory of letters received (1891-1894), which in turn includes a list of Sections organized and dissolved between 1891 and 1893, with notations on their nationality; incoming correspondence chiefly addressed to national secretary Henry Kuhn (1878-1906, bulk 1895-1899), much of which pertains to the mechanics of Party operations and includes discussion of Party philosophy and strategy, internal Party controversies, campaigns and elections -- the campaign of 1896 is particularly well documented -- Board of Appeals cases, strikes, publications, and editorial policies of the party press, organization and operation of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, other labor organizations, agitation tours, national conventions, international affiliations, and Party finances; official ballots of the SLP Sections and the members at large on assorted questions of party policy and selection of party officials (1880, 1889-1904); official accounting records of the Committee (1881-1899); an agitators' date book (1896) containing itineraries of SLP agitators and candidates during the 1896 presidential campaign; and a list of Sections nad officers, ca. 1896.

Records of the party press (1885-1904) pertain to the official newspapers owned by the Party as well as to other socialist-oriented newspapers which at times endorsed and advocated the principles of ths SLP. The nature of the files varies between publications, but includes some correspondence, lists of subscribers, accounts, and minutes. The Party-owned enterprises represented include the New York Labor News Company and the Workamen's Printing Company, which handled publication and distribution of Party pamphlets; Der Sozialist and its successor, Vorwarts, a German weekly edited by Hugo Vogt; The People, official Party weekly in English, begun in 1891 with Daniel De Leon as editor; the Daily People Committee, organized in 1895 to raise money for a daily newspaper in English which was issued and edited by De Leon from 1900 to 1914; and the Abendblatt, a daily published in Yiddish. Also included in this series are files relating to two papers outside Party ownership, the Arbeiter Zeitung and the New Yorker Zeitung.

Records of the National Board of Appeals (1878-1900) (known as the National Board of Supervision between 1877 and 1896) concerns disciplinary action aken against Sections and members and includes official minutes (1879, 1899-1900); a letter book (1878-1880) in German and English; correspondence (1888-1899, 1893, 1895-1900), containing letters in German and Enlgish between the Board and Party officials and members, affidavits and testimony, and reports of the Board to the national conventions.

Records of the National Conventions (1877-1904) include printed plarforms, constitutions and proceedings for most years for which there are files, as well as some correspondence, reports and resolutions for some years. The Conventions were called by a vote of the Party membership and met irregularly. Portions of the files are in German.

Records concerning Party activities (1880-1905) include two notebooks kept by Party leaders W.L. Rosenberg and Daniel De Leon, and an assortment of newspaper clippings, mainly from socialist publications. Clippings pertain to the labor and socialist movements, and particularly to the activities of the SLP, including its debates, conventions, party philosophy, agitation and speaking tours and political campaigns.

The records of State Committees and Local Sections (1878-1906) complete the collection. Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Washington, and British Columbia are represented through records of Local Sections of American, German, Flemish, Italian and Scandinavian membership. There are also incomplete files of minutes and correspondence of the New York State Committee within the period 1884-1902. Fragmentary as it is, this series does illustrate the varied international composition of the Party membership and the organization and operation of the Party on the state and local levels.

Dates

  • 1877-1906

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection material in English, French, German, Flemish, Swedish, Italian

Conditions Governing Access

Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.

Biographical / Historical

Founded in 1877, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) developed into the foremost socialist organization in the United States at the turn of the century and was the first American Marxist party to maintain its existence over a long span of years.

In 1877, the Workingmen's Party of the United States reorganized and changed its name to Sozialistische Arbeiter-Partei or, in its English version, the Socialistic Labor Party, a title which, fifteen years later, was changed to Socialist Labor Party. Of the estimated 90% of the members of foreign origin, Germans formed the most numerous nationality group and furnished many of the leaders, although the first secretary, Philip Van Patten, was a native-born American. A great deal of the material in this collection is in German.

Throughout its early decades the Socialist Labor Party was frequently torn by internal factional disputes and controversies. One group of militant unionists, led by F.A. Sorge, withdrew in 1877-1878. Two other factions, sydicalist and anarchist in tendency, led by Albert Parsons, August Spies, and Johann Most, withdrew in 1881. Within the remaining membership conflicts were waged between Lassalleans, the right-wing members committed to political action, and the Marxists, the left-wing revolutionary members emphasizing militant unionism. The Lassalleans controlled the Party until 1889, but in the 1890's, through the influence of new leaders, including Daniel De Leon, Hugo Vogt, Lucien Sanial, and Henry Kuhn, the Party developed an aggressive program emphasizng both militant trade unionism and independent politcal action.

In 1895, the SLP broke off relations with the American Federation of Labor and formed the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. It was never able to mount any serious challenge to the AFL, and its remnants joined in founding the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905.

The SLP fielded its first national ticket in 1892 and did so again in 1896. In state and local politics, particularly in New York State, the Party provided numerous candidates beginning in 1877, although it sometimes supported progressive or populist candidates running under other party labels. In 1898, the Party had reached the zenith of its size and influence, with an estimated membership of 6,000 and 82,000 votes garnered for its own candidates in state and local elections.

Dissatisfaction with Party policies and leaders persisted among members friendly to the AFL, members evolutionary in their concept of socialism and members who resented De Leon's autocratic personality and Party discipline. Led by Morris Hillquit, many of these dissenters withdrew in 1899 to form the Socialist Party, and from this schism the SLP never fully recovered. Following the withdrawal of Hillquit and the death of De Leon in 1914, the SLP's principal activity was educational agitation.

Extent

4.33 cubic feet

Abstract

Consist of the official records of the Socialist Labor Party from its organization in 1877 until 1907. Despite the fragmentation or paucity of some types of records, the collection as a whole documents many facets of the Party's development, organization, thought, and tactics, as well as its contribution to the labor and socialist movements in a turbulent era of industrial change and of social and economic stress in the United States.

Quantity:

39 microfilm reels

Forms of Material:

Records (documents), microfilm .

General

Contact Information:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives Martin P. Catherwood Library 227 Ives Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183 kheel_center@cornell.edu http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel-center
Compiled by:
Kheel Staff, September 26, 2012
EAD encoding:
Randall Miles, January 23, 2019
Title
Socialist Labor Party Records on Microfilm
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Kheel Staff
Date
January 23, 2019
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Revision Statements

  • 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)

Repository Details

Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository

Contact:
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853