LibGuides: Topic: Activism and Social Movements in the Alternative Press Collection in UConn Archives & Special Collections: Home

About this Guide

The University of Connecticut’s Archives & Special Collections holds many materials related to research topics in activism and social movements, especially in the Alternative Press collection. This guide provides a curated selection of published materials, manuscript collections, and digitized materials available in the CTDA. The guide is meant to provide a starting point for research into these topics in UConn's Archives & Special Collections--it is not a comprehensive listing of all materials related to these topics held by the UConn Archives & Special Collections.

Several pages of this guide draw from previous work done by Archives & Special Collections staff and student workers presented through Collection Spotlights hosted on the Archives & Special Collections blog. These posts are linked throughout the guide, and can provide you with additional information and resources on the topics covered on the guide.

About the Alternative Press Collection

The Alternative Press Collection (APC) includes thousands of national and international newspapers, serials, books, pamphlets, ephemera and artifacts documenting activist themes and organizations from the 1800s to the present. Begun in 1967 when ephemeral campus underground materials were collected by Special Collections Department staff, documentation continued through the 1970s to focus on political and social problems of the decade.

In addition to subject files on alternative organizations, posters, buttons, and ephemera from social movements in the United States, the APC contains manuscript collections, including the personal papers of activists such as Abbie Hoffman, Cal Robertson, Stephen Thornton, and Foster Gunnison jr.; records of social justice organizations such as the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union; and various topical collections including the Poras Collection of Vietnam War Memorabilia and the Meyer Collection of Fat Liberation.

Browse all Alternative Press Collections

Related Resources

d’Archive Episode 4: Abbie Hoffman, UConn and the War in Vietnam
The American invasion of Vietnam and campus recruitment by petro-chemical companies matched by growing disparities between haves and have-nots and its reflection in a lack of students of color at UConn led to the beginning of student demonstrations in 1968. Popular national counter culture icons like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin of the Yippee’s and Chicago 7 are featured in the waning days of the movement. This episode discusses the 1960s Alternative Press activist collections contained in the Archives & Special Collections.
d’Archive Episode 16: Faith & Activism on the Political Divide
A conversation with Associate Professor of Sociology at UConn, Ruth Braunstein, on her research dealing with religious communities and political activism on the right and the left. Ruth’s work has been promoted by the UConn Humanities Institute’s Humility & Conviction in Public Life Project. Her work has utilized the Alternative Press Collections at the archives to research tax resistance as direct action and its uses by groups like the Catholic Worker Movement and the Tea Party to name a few.
d’Archive Episode 18: People’s History
This episode features a discussion with Hartford activist, author, and public historian Steve Thornton of the Shoeleather History Project about people’s history and the meaningful impact that largely unrecorded events and individuals have left on the landscape. Thankfully, the archives contains Steve’s papers which document labor activism, anti-apartheid and Irish solidarity struggles as well as the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980s Connecticut and the anti-racist organizing against it.
d’Archive Episode 21: AIDS Activism and Public Health
This episode features a conversation with Thomas Lawrence Long, Associate Professor in Residence in the UConn School of Nursing and curator of the Dolan Collection of Nursing History. Tom provides insight to the history of LGBTQ AIDS activism during the 1980s and 90s where direct action by groups like ACT UP drove change in the fight for treatment. As curator of the Dolan Collection, his use of archives and history has informed his research and exhibitions like the featured at UConn on the 35th anniversary of the AIDS outbreak.
d’Archive Episode 25: Art/Activism/Archives
This episode features a conversation with visual artists Mary Banas and Breanne M. Trammell about their residency at Counterproof Press in the UConn School of Fine Arts. Mary and Breanne consulted the Alternative Press Collection at the UConn Archives during their residency in April of 2019 to workshop and design visual ephemera about social justice topics. Their eye towards aesthetics in underground printing and memorabilia of the 1960s provides a unique perspective in how archives can be utilized to draw from the past to engage students about art and its role in contemporary advocacy.
d’Archive Episode 26: 1974 Black Student Sit In @ Wilbur Cross Library
This episode features an overview of collection materials in the archives documenting the Black Student sit in of April 22, 1974 in the Wilbur Cross Library at UConn. This direct action came as a student response to several grievances regarding structural racism in higher education and locally in the Anthropology Department.
d’Archive Episode 28: Day-Glo & Napalm
Guest Curator, George Jacobi and Chris Malis join me for a conversation about the UConn Archives exhibition Day-Glo & Napalm: UConn 1967-1971. As UConn alumni, and Woodstock audience members, George and Chris discuss the exhibition, their student days at UConn 50 years ago, the music, the attitudes, and the perspectives they hold about the times on this anniversary.
d’Archive Episode 30: UConn Students for a Democratic Society
This episode includes interviews that were collected from UConn alumni and members of the New Left student organization, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at a Woodstock 50th anniversary celebration this summer hosted by guest curator of Day-glo & Napalm, George Jacobi.
d’Archive Episode 41: G.I. Press and Protest
This episode of d’Archive was recorded in the Fall of 2019 and features a conversation with Victoria Johnson, a human rights intern at the Archives & Special Collections and former UConn Library student employee. Victoria explored the Calabretta Collection of 1960s memorabilia, concentrating on the audio material related to the G.I. anti-war protest movement and the music they produced around their unique experience during the War in Vietnam.
d’Archive Episode 47: Inner College
This episode features interviews with University of Connecticut alumn and faculty who participated in the National Endowment for the Humanities funded experimental education program, the Inner College in the early 1970s. This unique program allowed UConn students to take courses from other students or educators in a non-traditional academic setting and receive credit for teaching and learning. These recordings were made during the reunion celebration held on August 6th, 2022 at the Alumni Center on the Storrs campus.
d’Archive Episode 51: Organizing for Change, 1974 Black Student Sit In @ Wilbur Cross Library
This episode features an interview with alumni Rodney Bass (BA ’75/MA ’76) who was active in organizing Black students through the Organization of African American Students (OAAS) during his time at the University of Connecticut, Storrs campus. One of the high-water marks for activism by students of color at UConn was the 1974 Black Student Sit-In in Wilbur Cross Library which he served as a representative for when delivering demands to the administration of President Glenn W. Ferguson. Rodney walks us through the days leading up to this protest and contextualizes the experiences of Black students on the Storrs campus during that period.
d’Archive Episode 52: Gary King, Organizing for Change 1974
This episode features an exhibition walkthrough with alumni Gary King (’74) who was active in organizing Black students during his time at the University of Connecticut, Storrs campus. One of the high-water marks for activism by students of color at UConn was the 1974 Black Student Sit-In in Wilbur Cross Library which he operated as a member of the internal steering committee of organizers to advance their demands. Dr. King, professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University, joined me in the Schimmelpfeng Gallery at the Archives & Special Collections in March of 2024 to walk through the exhibition Please Respond Personally: Commemorating the 1974 Black Student Sit-in (running March 11-July 19, 2024) for the event’s 50th anniversary.

25 for 25: Black Student Sit-In Photographs, 1974
This video explores the Black student sit-in of April 22-24, 1974 at the University of Connecticut's Wilbur Cross Library. Using black and white photographs taken by the University photographer, we contextualize and explore the recorded past to help demonstrate the impact of students of color involved in antiracist activism on the Storrs campus since the late 1960s.
25 for 25: Zine Collections
This video highlights Zines held in UConn's Archives & Special Collections. Zines are a low barrier form of communication that stem from one of the earliest kinds of a social media, the distribution of underground printed pamphlets.