About the Collection

The Socialist Party of America was founded in 1901, largely as a response to the United States' new industrial economy. A 1908 study by party leaders showed that many of its participants came to the movement after reading socialist literature. In turn, the proliferation of socialist literature was helped by an increase in literacy rates, lower costs of publishing, reduced postal rates, and, prior to the first World War, relatively lax government suppression of print matter.

This collection contains a number of the socialist newspapers owned by the University Libraries.