The collection provides a portrait, through the correspondence and internal policy records, of the struggles of a left-oriented organization to publish a radical, yet professional magazine.
The CORRESPONDENCE is arranged alphabetically, with general folders often followed by folders for individual correspondents or, less frequently, folders for publications and organizations such as Monthly Review or the New England Free Press. Occasionally correspondence from an individual may appear in a folder labelled with the name of an organization as well as under his or her own name. While some of the correspondence consists of mundane requests for literature or subscriptions, a large portion of it, particularly from 1971-1975, pertains to various readers' comments and criticisms on Radical America's policies and articles. Correspondents include Paul Breines; Dick Howard; Martin Glaberman of the Friends of Facing Reality Publishing Company; and Mark Naison, a frequent contributor to Radical America who expresses sentiments typical of the malaise of the New Left in the late 1960s. Also important are letters from the New England Free Press, which publishes reprints of radical literature; Fredy Perlman of the Black and Red Gang; Franklin Rosemont, who deals extensively with surrealism; and Gilbert Shelton and Denis Kitchen of underground comics fame.
The OFFICIAL RECORDS contain few records prior to 1971 and are most complete for 1972-1974. The Internal Policy records provide extensive information on discussions held by the editorial board to determine the direction of the magazine as well as day-to-day operations. The Published Articles and Poems do not comprise a complete set of manuscripts for material published in the magazine.
