The Paul Booth Papers span the years 1956 to 1970 but primarily concern his activities from 1962 to 1970. The collection is composed of general correspondence, 1962-1968, several folders of Booth's writings and speeches, an extensive subject file concerning organizations Booth was active or interested in, some miscellany, and restricted material on his Chicago labor projects.
The correspondence includes letters or copies of letters from personal friends; political leaders; activists in the civil rights, anti-war, and labor movements; and from other SDS leaders. Topics of primary concern include strategy of the New Left; the war in Indochina; civil rights; and the theory and practice of organizing students, workers, and minorities into an effective political force. Prominent correspondents include the following (an asterisk after a name indicates frequent or important correspondence):
- Lois Addison, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Democrats*
- Robert Bender, executive director of the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union*
- Julian Bond, Georgia State Representative and civil rights leader
- Joseph Clark, U.S. Senator (D-Pa)
- Rennie Davis, director of ERAP*
- David Dillinger, anti-war activist and member of the Chicago Seven
- Greg Gallo, president of the NSA*
- Todd Gitlin, former president of SDS and Booth's co-worker on PREP*
- William Green, U.S. Congressman (D-Pa)
- Philip Hart, U.S. Senator (D-Mich)
- Steven Max, member of SDS's National Office*
- Vance Opperman, vice president of NSA*
- Walter Reuther, president of United Auto Workers*
- Dr. Benjamin Spock, anti-war activist
- Nicholas von Hoffman, radical journalist
- Arthur Waskow, New Left leader and historian*
- Jim Williams, director of SDS's Political Education Project*
Booth's writings and speeches comprise two folders of material, one containing “A New Left Manifesto,” 1967-1968, and one containing drafts of a speech, several essays, and several longer studies. This material relates to poverty in the United States, the New Left, and the relationship between SDS and the NCNP.
Booth's subject file is arranged alphabetically by title of organization, most prominently the NCNP, NSA, and SDS. The material on the NCNP is primarily concerned with its August 1967 convention and its aftermath.
There are pre-convention mailings; reports, papers, and proposals presented at the convention; financial statements; clippings; and material on the organization's response to its investigation by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. One folder concerns NSA's International Committee meetings and the role of the NSA and American students in foreign countries, 1964-1965. Concerning the Northern Student Movement, to which Booth related while at Swarthmore, there is one folder of conference papers and leaflets, 1963-1964, re civil rights, education, problems of the Northern ghettoes, and rent strikes. The School of Community Organization records, 1967, reflect Booth's involvement in an attempt to create a grassroots, radical political base in Chicago; these records include brochures, reports, and clippings examining Chicago's power structure, and memoranda and membership lists which illustrate intra-organizational developments. The most extensive section of this subject file concerns Booth's long participation in SDS; filed alphabetically there is information on civil rights activities in the South, 1961; ERAP, 1963-1967; miscellany, 1961-1967; material from SDS national conventions, 1959-1965; SDS's Political Education Project (PEP) and especially its study of HUAC, 1961-1968; research papers by various authors) 1962-1964; and two bound volumes, labelled “Fall Semester, 1962” and “Spring Semester, 1962.” In these volumes Booth chronologically filed all SDS materials that came his way that year.
The miscellany includes Booth's personal financial records, 1965-1966; clippings, 1963-1967, re the test ban treaty, civil rights, Democratic Party politics, and the New Left; and a folder of leaflets, 1960-1967, re civil rights, community action, and anti-war activities. There is also a folder of research papers, 1956-1961, by various authors on such topics as the Student League for Industrial Democracy, civil liberties, federal aid to education, and peace.
There is material pertaining to Booth's involvement in the Labor Project and the GM strike. It includes letters from co-workers, labor activists, and friends concerning conferences on labor organizing, the newsletter New Directions in Labor, and discussions of current political issues such as wage and price controls and the war in Vietnam. The folder on the GM strike also contains lists of student organizers and professors in the Chicago area who supported or sympathized with the GM workers as well as other material pertaining to the gaining of student support for this strike.
