Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932
Links to related holdings and other sites of interest
Related Holdings
Listed below are links to various libraries and institutions with collections which contain materials related to the Red Clydeside period and the history of the labour movement in general. The three major libraries whose materials were used in the creation of this Red Clydeside collection are Glasgow Caledonian University Library, Glasgow University Library, and the Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Council.
Glasgow Caledonian University Library Special Collections
- Gallacher Memorial Library
- Founded in 1968 in Glasgow as a tribute to the life and work of William Gallacher, political stalwart of the Red Clydeside period and former Communist MP for Dunfermline East, the Library consists of many thousands of books, pamphlets, posters, photographs, journals, microfilms, tape recordings, press cuttings, manuscripts and paintings.
- Sandy Hobbs Collection
- Includes a range of left-wing books, pamphlets and periodicals. Books include political biographies and books on trade unions and workers' control. The periodicals cover Scottish, British and international concerns, with many dating from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, as well as later periodicals from the 1970s to the 1990s. The pamphlets cover labour and women's issues, international communism, Russia, Cuba, and social security issues such as health and unemployment.
- Samuel Stewart Collection
- Samuel Stewart was born in 1887 in Glasgow and lived in the Townhead area of the city. During the early 1900s Sam was active in socialist politics in the city and joined the Socialist Labour Party, where he struck up a close friendship with John Maclean. Sam would later go on to work with Maclean in his political campaigning. The collection includes political biographies, Labour monthly pamphlets and books from the Left Book Club.
- Norrie McIntosh Collection
- Norrie McIntosh has been a member of Glasgow Caledonian University Court since 1992. He worked as a draughtsman for many years, and has had a long involvement in trade union activities. This relatively small collection of 74 books is important for its contribution to the university's holdings on Red Clydeside and the trade unions, and also includes some primary source material relating to Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
- Norman and Janey Buchan Collection
- One of Caledonian University Library's core collections. Apart from books, pamphlets and a wealth of journal literature, this collection contains some fascinating items of particular note. Examples include a copy of Berthold's Political Handkerchief, a rare example of a radical press publication on linen from 1831, a bound two-volume set of The Statesman from November 1818 to February 1821, and a photograph album compiled by Harold Mitchell of Spanish scenes, including war damage, which carries his 'pass to enter Nationalist Spain', signed by General Franco and dated 15 December 1936.
Glasgow University Library Special Collections
- Broady Collection
- A collection of over 400 socialist pamphlets, broadsheets, election manifestos and posters, from the 1930s to the 1950s. The emphasis is on publications of the Independent Labour Party, on the writings of the anarchist Guy Aldred, and on publications dealing with post-war recovery plans for Glasgow.
- Bissett Collection
- Some 1500 left-wing pamphlets from the late 19th century to the present. The subject coverage is extremely wide, embracing topics such as Bolshevism, the Fabians, the Independent Labour Party, the Spanish Civil War, women's rights, trade unions, and unemployment.
- Farmer Collection
- Papers and books of Henry George Farmer (1882-1965), musician and orientalist, donated at various times between around 1930 and 1965. The subjects covered include concerts and variety theatre in Glasgow, socialism and trade unions, and the Paris Commune.
- Trotsky Collection
- An extensive collection of Trotskiana which was donated to Glasgow University Library in 1983 by Louis Sinclair, Trotsky's bibliographer. The original gift comprised some 1800 editions of Trotsky's works in 40 languages, together with numerous secondary items and several hundred periodical and newspaper issues containing pieces by Trotsky.
Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Libraries and Archives
- Glasgow Collection
- A wealth of source materials on all aspects of the history of the city of Glasgow. The collection is particularly strong on social and political aspects of the city's history. The collection also covers topography, travel, archaeology and heraldry, as well as local studies material.
- Virtual Mitchell Collection
- A large online collection of photographs and other images from Glasgow's past. The collection is searchable by area, street or subject.
University of Liverpool Special Collections and Archives
- Glasier Papers
- The collected papers of John and Katharine Bruce Glasier, pioneers of the British socialist movement and founder members of the Independent Labour Party.
John Rylands University Library
- Special Collection Guide - Social and Political History
- The varied collections based at the John Rylands University Library contain many important primary source materials relating to the major political, economic and social developments of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The different collections contain correspondence with a large number of politicians and statesmen. Almost every major political event and social trend is documented in the correspondence and dispatches.
- Labour History Archive and Study Centre
- This is the only specialist repository for the political wing of the labour movement. It holds records for working class political organisations from the Chartists to New Labour under Tony Blair, including the archives of the Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Specialist Libraries
- British Library of Political and Economic Science
- This library was founded in 1896 by public subscription on the initiative of Sidney Webb. It is now the working library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The Library's scope is the social sciences in the broadest sense of the term, although it has a particularly rich collection of materials related to the history of labour in Britain from the 19th century onwards.
- People's History Museum
- This museum, based in Manchester, is the national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people in Britain.
- The Women's Library (formerly the Fawcett Library)
- This library holds a varied and growing collection of archives from women's organisations and individual women, many of whom were prominent in their field. As would be expected the library is particularly strong in the area of women's suffrage.
- Marxist Internet Archive
- A comprehensive Internet archive detailing the written works of all the important Marxist writers of the 19th and 20th century including, John Maclean and James Connolly.
- Working Class Movement Library
- This library was founded in 1953 and is based in Manchester. It houses a collection of English language books, periodicals, pamphlets, archives and artefacts concerned with the activities, expression and enquiries of the labour movement, its allies and its enemies, since the late eighteenth century.
Institutes, Associations and Societies
- International Institute of Social History
- Based in the Netherlands, the IISH was founded in 1935. It is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions in the field of social history in general, and the history of the labour movement in particular. Most of its collections are open to the public.
- International Association of Labour History Institutions
- IALHI brings together archives, libraries, document centres, museums and research institutions specialising in the history and theory of the labour movement from all over the world. A group of members has created IALHInet, a library network for labour history researchers that provides a number of services, including listings of the tables of contents of major labour history journals.
- Society for the Study of Labour History
- Founded in 1966, the Society is the UK's principal organisation dedicated to the study of labour history. Based at Edinburgh University, the society publishes the highly-regarded journal Labour History Review.
Other Sites of Interest
Listed below are links to other online exhibitions and sites of interest related to the history of both the British and the international labour movement. Like the Red Clydeside collection, these sites draw their inspiration and content primarily from library and archival materials such as books, manuscripts, photographs, printed ephemera and posters.
Britain
- Encyclopaedia of British History: Trade Unions
- An online educational resource produced by Spartacus Encyclopedia which traces the history of the British trade union movement. It contains links to information on early trade unions and trade unionists, important historical trade union and political legislation, and labour journals and newspapers.
- Encyclopaedia of British History: Socialism
- An online educational resource produced by Spartacus Encyclopedia which traces the history of the British labour movement. It contains links to information on early socialist writers and philosophers, socialist and Marxist political organisations, and also socialist journals and newspapers.
- Ymgyrchu! A century of political and social campaigning in Wales
- This site presents the story of the struggles of Welsh miners and quarrymen in their fight for fair wages and decent working conditions during the twentieth century. This is done through the use of digitised images of original documents, photographs, and sound and video files from various collections in the National Library of Wales.
- South Wales Coalfield Collection
- Produced by the University of Wales in Swansea, this website gives an insight, through a variety of archival media, into the experience of the south Wales valleys during a period of industrial turmoil, both from an institutional and personal perspective.
Europe
- John Maclean Internet Archive
- Produced by the Marxist Internet Archive, this site lists all John Maclean's transcribed speeches and articles, from 1907 through to his death in 1923.
- Siege and Commune of Paris 1870-1871
- Produced by the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, this site contains links to over 1200 digitised photographs and images recorded during the Siege and Commune of Paris around 1871. In addition to the images in this set, the Library's Siege and Commune Collection contains 1500 caricatures, 68 newspapers in hard-copy and film, hundreds of books and pamphlets, and about 1000 posters.
Canada
- Canadian Labour History 1850-1999
- Website by the Canadian Museum of Civilisation which traces the history of the Canadian labour movement with the aim of showing how it served its members while forcing broader reforms within Canadian society.
- Cradle of Collective Bargaining
- This archive is based on the photographic collection housed in the Labour Studies Programme at McMaster University, Canada. It has been supplemented with photos and written documents drawn from union archives held at the University library. The photo collection provides a visual history of the rise of trade unionism in Hamilton and the changing conditions of work in the city.
USA
- Haymarket Affair Digital Collection
- The Chicago Historical Society has created this digital collection to provide online access to its primary source materials relating to the Haymarket Affair, a controversial moment in Chicago's past, and a pivotal event in the early history of the American labor movement.
- Dramas of Haymarket
- Produced by the Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University, this website examines selected materials from the Society's Haymarket Affair Digital Collection and places them in historical context, drawing on many other items from the Society's extensive resources.
- Seattle General Strike Project
- An online resource center for information about the 1919 general strike and related labor history of Seattle and the Pacific north-west. It offers original research reports, published articles, photographs, political cartoons, document facsimiles, and extensive bibliographic and archival guides.
- American Radicalism: International Workers of the World
- Founded in Chicago in 1905, this syndicalist grouping was bitterly opposed to the American Federation of Labor's acceptance of capitalism and exclusion of unskilled workers from unions. Collection documents mostly date from the post-war 1920s, when anti-radical sentiment lead to harassment and prosecution of IWW members.