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Summary Information
Students for a Democratic Society Records
1958-1970
- Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
Mss 177; Audio 517A; Micro 655; M78-179; M96-081; M2000-040;
M2001-026; M2008-108; M2010-118
22.2 cubic feet (57 archives boxes), 24 tape recordings, and 41
reels of microfilm (35 mm); plus additions of 1.2 cubic feet
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Records of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a national organization of
students founded in 1960 that provided much of the force and direction for the New Left
during the 1960s. Three boxes relate to SDS during its initial growth, 1958-1962, and
contain national convention papers (including the Port Huron Statement); files on the League
for Industrial Democracy and the Student League for Industrial Democracy from which SDS
developed, projects, and related organizations; and correspondence of early leaders Al Haber
and Tom Hayden. Thirty boxes date from the fall of 1962 to August 1965, the period when SDS
still considered reform possible and when it maintained four separate national offices: the
administrative national office and the offices of the Economic Research and Action Project,
the Peace Research and Education Project, and the Political Education Project. National
office records include voluminous correspondence of leaders such as Todd Gitlin, Paul
Potter, and Clark Kissinger, reports, minutes, membership lists, pamphlets, registration
forms, newsletters, clippings, and check stubs. These records relate to conventions and
meetings, projects involving the anti-war movement and South Africa, publications, and
intra-organization matters and relations with local chapters and other organizations. ERAP,
which was headed by Rennie Davis, sought to organize a radical political movement among the
poor. This section includes files on meetings, publications, and projects such as its
extensive work among the poor in Chicago. PREP, which served as a clearinghouse and
publisher for research on peace, disarmament, and foreign policy, is documented by
correspondence, leaflets, manuscripts, newsletters, prospectuses, reports, and files on
Boston PREP. One-half box of correspondence, memos, minutes, leaflets, prospectuses, and
reports document PEP's efforts to push national electoral politics leftward in 1964. The
third series consists of 23 boxes regarding the operations of the national office from late
1964 to 1970 when SDS became increasingly action-oriented, violent, and fractious,
ultimately dividing into Progressive Labor, Weathermen, and Revolutionary Youth Movement.
Included are correspondence (containing many references to Paul Booth and Bernadine Dohrn);
minutes, notes, resolutions, and further correspondence of the national conventions and
meetings; office files; project and subject files; reference files; and material concerning
local chapters and related groups. Also part of the manuscript collection, but not available
with the microfilm edition, are 24 tape recordings of SDS conferences, conventions,
meetings, and speeches; the April 17, 1965, March on Washington; and the 1966 National
Conference for New Politics Electoral Campaign Institute.
See Alternate Format available as well as Related Material.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00177 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
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