Banned books and other forms of censorship

On the banning of books, censorship and other freedom of access issues

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

CPUSA archives to New York University

Today's New York Times features a lengthy front page article on the donation of materials from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) to the Tamiment library of New York University. According to the report:

"The donation includes 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets and a million photographs from The Daily Worker’s archives.

"Sam Webb, national chairman of the Communist Party USA, said, 'We felt that Tamiment could better maintain the collection and provide for a much wider audience.' He said hardly any of the files were reviewed before being given away."

The report mentions that the university library also has another part of the CPUSA archives, records which were sent to Moscow for safekeeping 50 years ago, and then microfilmed by the U.S. Library of Congress, despite the vociferous objections of some affiliated with the CPUSA, most notably Mark Rosenzweig, who headed the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, the official library of the CPUSA headquarters in New York City.

Michael Nash, director of the library, says it will take years to catalog the materials.

Update: A March 23 speech by Jarvis Tyner on the transfer of these materials was published in Political Affairs today (April 3). Tyner is executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA.

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