Holt Labor Library pamphlet and subject file collection

The Holt Labor Library was a library in San Francisco from 1992 to 2019 that collected and made accessible primary and secondary source material related to labor history and the history of the radical left, with an emphasis on the activities of American Trotskyist political organizations. The Library also collected materials related to various anti-war movements, the women's movement, gay liberation, the African American Civil Rights Movement, among other social justice causes.

This collection contains materials created by and about a number of recognizable organizations, activists, politicians, and thinkers including but not limited to: Fidel Castro, Eugene V. Debs, Freiedrich Engels, Che Guevara, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Malcom X. Some other people, publications, and organizations featured in this collection are:

1. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a federation of autonomous labor unions formed in 1955 by the merger of the AFL (founded 1886), which originally organized workers in craft unions, and the CIO (founded 1935), which organized workers by industries. (Britannica). Still active today, the AFL-CIO states they contain 58 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working people. (AFL-CIO)

2. Appalachian Movement Press was an independent printer and publisher based in Huntington, WV from 1969 to 1979 that explored Appalachian history and culture, and re-published and amplified anti-corruption journalism from other sources. (Shaun Slifer, JustSeeds)

3. James P. Cannon (1890-1974) was a Trotskyist, journalist, activist, party leader, writer, and editor from Rosedale, Kansas. He was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) and an influential figure in the Trotskyist Fourth International. (Marxists.org)

4. Charles H. Kerr and Company Press is a “radical” publisher founded in 1886 by Charles Hope Kerr (1860-1944). From the early 1900’s they published books "on socialism, free thought, economics, history, hygiene, American fiction, etc." and in 1906 became the English language publisher for Karl Marx’s “Capital”. Today, the publisher continues to publish Marxist and labor materials and advertising itself as “Subversive literature for the whole family since 1886.” (Charles H. Kerr)

5. Joseph Hanson (1910-1979) was a Trotskyist, journalist, leader, writer, and editor. He had an influential role in the Socialist Workers Party and the Fourth International and was the editor-in-chief of the Socialist Workers Party’s weekly publication “The Militant” from 1959-1967. (Trotskyana.net)

6. International Publishers is a publishing company founded in 1924 by Alexander L. Trachtenberg (1885-1966), a Marxist writer, educator, and publisher, as well as a founding member of the Communist Party, USA. According to the International Publishers website “...International Publishers has maintained a commitment to publishing high quality Marxist literature, fiction and nonfiction.” (Intpubnyc.com)

7. International Workers of the World (IWW) is a labor union founded in 1905 and currently represents nearly 9000 workers across North America. The IWW promotes the concept of “One Big Union” and the idea that “all workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and wage labor with industrial democracy.” (IWW.org)

8. League for Industrial Democracy was an educational organization founded in 1905 by Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Clarence Darrow, and Norman Thomas as the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. The organization focused on racial equality, abolition of poverty, the strengthening of trade unions, the expansion of civil liberties "and the realignment of our political organizations with a view toward making them more responsive to the will of the people.” (Industrialdemocracy.org (via Internet Archive); Snac)

9. Ernest Mandel (1923-1995) was a Belgian Marxist and a political leader and theoretician of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. He was a Holocaust survivor and an active voice in the resistance of the Nazi occupation in Belgium. (Marxists.org)

10. Willian Z. Foster (1881-1961) was an American labor and Communist Party leader, running as the Presidential candidate for the U.S. Communist Party in 1924, 1928, and 1932 and known for leading the 1919 U.S. steel strike. (Marxists.org)

11.Pathfinder Press/Pioneer Publishers was founded in 1930 by Max Shachtman, originally as Pioneer and later Pathfinder starting in 1969. The publisher is the official publishing arm of the Socialist Workers Party and primarily publishes works of Marxist theory and of socialist political analysis and commentary, as well as being the principal English-language publishers of writings of Leon Trotsky. (Biblio.com)

12. Workers Library Publishers was the pamphlet publishing arm of the Workers Party of America. (Biblio.com)