Title: Robert S. Starobin Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1960-1967

Creator:

• Starobin, Robert S.

Call Number: Mss 428

Quantity: 0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of New Left historian and social activist Robert Starobin, chiefly consisting of collected print and near-print material relating to the Free Speech Movement at the University of California-Berkeley where he was a graduate student and to a number of civil rights organizations. The limited amount of original material in the collection consists of annotated organizational draft proposals and handwritten directives of the Graduate Coordinating Committee and the Teaching Assistants Union.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00428

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Robert Saul Starobin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 4, 1939. His father was Joseph R. Starobin, a university professor, political analyst, and influential member of the Communist party. In 1961 Robert received his B.A. from Cornell University, his M.A. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1962 and his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1968. As a graduate student at Berkeley he was active in numerous causes and organizations, including the Free Speech Movement in the academic year 1964-1965. During the same period he became president of the Graduate History Club, led the Graduate Coordinating Committee's attempts to rejoin the student governing body, the Associated Students of the University of California (A.S.U.C.), and was one of the leaders of the Teaching Assistants' Union. He accepted a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1966, became an assistant professor there in 1968, and joined the SUNY-Binghamton faculty in 1970. In February 1971 he committed suicide.

Starobin wrote or edited several monographs and articles; his books included:

• Blacks in Bondage, Letters of American Slaves, ed. (New York, 1974).
• Denmark Vesey, The Slave Conspiracy of 1822, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1970).
• Industrial Slavery in the Old South (New York, 1970).

The collection includes a wide variety of locally-distributed print and near-print leaflets, handbills, pamphlets, memoranda, reports and newsletters relating to the positions and activities of student organizations, social activist and civil rights groups, and early anti-Viet Nam War protest efforts, primarily from the Berkeley area during the early and mid-1960s. The three separate series of his papers reflect Starobin's concern over a number of diverse issues.

Within the STUDENT ACTIVISM series, the Correspondence, Writings, and Notes file contains form letters, telegrams, scattered pages of drafts for speeches and articles, brief jottings in reference to actions taken at various meetings, but almost no personal correspondence. Much of the W.E.B. DuBois Club file is promotional literature in the form of mimeographed leaflets and newsletters. The bulk of the material in the series pertains to the Free Speech Movement, but it is generally uninformative as to Starobin's role in that movement.

Conversely, his leadership role in the Graduate Coordinating Committee and the Teaching Assistants' Union is well documented by such material as annotated versions of organizational draft proposals and handwritten directives relating to membership drives. The file on Miscellaneous Organizations and Causes contains several isolated and unrelated items from organizations like the Committee for Constitutional Liberties, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Institute for Marxist Studies.

The CIVIL RIGHTS series likewise contains material relating to a number of organizations. The bulk of the SNCC file consists of newsletters, press releases, reprints of articles, and advertisements for conferences and other activities sponsored by the Bay Area Friends of SNCC. The Mississippi Summer Project file deals with the establishment of Freedom Schools, and includes such items as recruitment directives and lists of volunteers, field offices and contacts. Efforts to challenge the right of Mississippi Congressmen to be seated in the House of Representatives are the main focus of the few mimeographed sheets in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party file. Fact Sheets and handbills from such groups as the Western Christian Leadership Conference, the Ad-Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, and the Committee for Justice in Civil Rights are included in California Organizations. Similar promotional literature is prominent in the remaining files in the series.

Since the material in the PEACE AND ANTI-VIETNAM WAR series is not voluminous, it has been left in one file which is arranged chronologically. Leaflets and other ephemeral literature announcing various propositions, political stands, debates, teach-ins and rallies, document early opposition to the war at Berkeley. Also included are a few items from other geographic areas like New York and Wisconsin, and several issues of “Letter from China,” a news sheet by Anna Louise Strong.

Additional papers, research files and books of Robert Starobin are housed at a Memorial Library established by his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Starobin, at Hancock, Massachusetts.

Related collections at the SHSW Archives include:

• CORE, Berkeley, California chapter (Mss 163)
• CORE, Oakland, California chapter (Mss 176)
• CORE, Western Regional Office (Mss 160)
• Social Action Vertical File (Mss 577)
• W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America (Acc. Nos. M66-369 and M66-371)
• Free Speech Movement (Mss 134)
• Freedom Democratic Party (Lauderdale County: Micro 55; Sunflower County: Micro 53)
• Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SC 659)

See also:

• California. University. Bancroft Library. University Archives. The “Sather Gate” Handbill Collection, March 7, 1935-July 1969. Berkeley, California, 1969, 1971. 5 reels. (SHSW, Microforms).
• Aptheker, Bettina. FSM: The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley; an Historical Narrative. San Francisco: The W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America, circa 1965. (SHSW, Pam 320).

Acquisition Information

Presented by Robert Saul Starobin, Madison, Wisconsin, April 26, 1967. Accession Number: M67-133

Processing Information

Processed by David Tambo (Intern) and Joanne Hohler, August 2, 1978.

	Series: Student Activism
Box   1 Folder   1	Correspondence, Writings, and Notes, 1961-1966
Box   1 Folder   2	SLATE (student political organization at Berkeley), 1960-1965
Box   1 Folder   3	W.E.B. DuBois Club, 1962-1964
	Free Speech Movement
Box   1 Folder   4	Reports and Resolutions, Fall 1964-Spring 1965
Box   1 Folder   5-6	Circulars, Flyers, and Handbills, Fall 1964-Spring 1965
Box   1 Folder   7	Clippings, Reprints, and Other Ephemera, 1964-1967
Box   1 Folder   8	Graduate Coordinating Committee, Participation in ASUC, 1963-1965
Box   2 Folder   1	Teaching Assistants' Union, A.F.T. Local 1570, 1964-1968
Box   2 Folder   2	Miscellaneous Organizations and Causes, 1961-1967
	Series: Civil Rights	⇧
Box   2 Folder   3	SNCC, 1963-1966
Box   2 Folder   4	Mississippi Summer Project, 1964-1965
Box   2 Folder   5	Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964-1965
Box   2 Folder   6	California Organizations, 1960-1965
Box   2 Folder   7	Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964
Box   2 Folder   8	Medgar Evers Neighborhood Guild (Mississippi), 1965
Box   2 Folder   9	CORE, 1963-1965
Box   2 Folder   10	Miscellaneous Clippings, Reprints, and Other Ephemera, 1964-1967
Box   2 Folder   11	Series: Peace and Anti-Vietnam War, 1961-1967	⇧