[Publib] CPUSA Archives to NYU

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Communist Party USA Gives Its History to N.Y.U. 

By PATRICIA COHEN
(NY Times)
 
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject  
of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the  
night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music,  
became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that  
penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast  
collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the  
Communist Party USA has donated to _New York University_ 
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_york_university/index.html?inli
ne=nyt-org) .  
The cache contains decades of party history including founding documents,  
secret code words, stacks of personal letters, smuggled directives from Moscow,  
Lenin buttons, photographs and stern commands about how good party members  
should behave (no charity work, for instance, to distract them from their  
revolutionary duties).  
By offering such an inside view, the archives have the potential to revise  
assumptions on both the left and the right about one of the most contentious  
subjects in American history, in addition to filling out the story of  
progressive politics, the labor movement and the civil rights struggles.  
“It is one of the most exciting collecting opportunities that has ever  
presented itself here,” said Michael Nash, the director of New York University’s  
Tamiment Library, which will announce the donation on Friday.  
See:  _http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/arts/20nyu.html_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/arts/20nyu.html) 



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