Alternative Press Collection

The Alternative Press Collection, or APC,  was founded in the late 1960s as a repository for radical and ephemeral publications emanating from activist movements for social, cultural and political change.

Today the Alternative Press Collection contains more than 7000 newspaper and magazine titles with 90 currently on subscription, 5000 books and pamphlets, 1800 files of ephemera from activist organizations throughout the country, plus miscellaneous  posters, broadsides, buttons, calendars, and manuscripts.

The collection was conceived as a research collection. In addition to providing primary resources for the study of radical movements in recent history, the Alternative Press Collection can also be used by persons interested in weighing alternative viewpoints and alternative choices in their lives.

Major movements for social and political change, such as the examples given below, create their own published works to announce upcoming activities, analyze prevailing trends, and contribute to the attempt to reshape society within their self-defined world view.

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Liberation Movements and Civil Rights

Alternative publications such as Women's Liberation, Madness Network News, Akwesasne Notes, and La Chispa:  Chicano Community News, provide forums for a variety of activist groups such as women, gays, native Americans, Chicanos, the elderly, persons of color, and the physically, emotionally, and mentally challenged.

Student Activism

The library from the Radical Education Project of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formed the original core of the Alternative Press Collection.  Flyers, handouts and locally produced tabloids collected during the heyday of student demonstrations at the University of Connecticut and other New England campuses fill hundreds of files in the archive.  The University of Connecticut Peace Education Group, Mansfield Nuclear Arms Freeze, Students for Peace and other student / community groups still produce local publications that are regularly added to the APC.

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Political Reform and Revolution

The Communist/Socialist Collection contains approximately 3000 United States books and pamphlets from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  It also includes an extensive collection of anarchist material,  proposing a world view in  which government has no part.  Publications of libertarians, radical feminists, the Greens, and other movements are added to the Alternative Press Collection.  Other groups' publications offer suggestions for reform grounded in the prevailing views of 1960s and 1970s activists:  e.g. prison reform, human rights, and government monitoring.

Radical Professionals

Professional groups, such as the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association, Union for Radical Political Economists, the National Lawyers Guild, and Physicians for Social Responsibility publish their own organs advocating fundamental change within their respective professions.

On the Right

To lend balance to the debate over social and political change, the Alternative Press Collection acquires materials from the right of the political spectrum. Samples of conservative materials such as American Spectator, Review of the News, and Phyllis Schlafly Report provide another voice to contemporary discussion. The Alternative Press Collection also collects samples of the radical right, including publications from groups such as the National Emancipation of the White Seed, Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, Committee to Restore the Constitution, and Accuracy in Media.

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