Archie Henderson - Conservatism, the Right Wing, and the Far Right - A Guide to Archives

Finding aid:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt7c6036fk/entire_text/

[0454] Records of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA)

Location: Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, 557 Escondido Mall, Stanford, California 94305-6064

Description: Founded in 1966 with funding from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), CRLA provides direct legal services to the low income rural population in California, particularly to migrant farmworkers. On December 26, 1970, Ronald Reagan (then Governor of California) vetoed a $1.8 million OEO grant for CRLA's 1971 refunding. His veto was based on a report compiled by Lewis K. Uhler, a former member of the John Birch Society, who had been appointed by Reagan as director of the state's OEO. Uhler submitted to Reagan a report entitled A Study and Evaluation of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (the Uhler Report). The report listed 127 incidents of alleged CRLA misconduct. In response to the outcry against the veto, the new director of the OEO, Frank Carlucci, formed a commission to investigate the claims contained in the Uhler Report. The commission concluded that the charges were irrelevant or unfounded, and its OEO funding was extended. In addition to copies of CRLA's responses to the Uhler Report, records related to this controversy held in the collection include news clippings, press releases, pleadings, hearing transcripts, correspondence, and commission reports, as wells as many letters of support for CRLA sent to President Nixon, Reagan, and Carlucci from a wide range of supporters, including other legal service organizations, law schools, politicians, labor organizations, religious groups, and individual attorneys and clients.

Websites with information:

http://lib.stanford.edu/special-collections-university-archives-blog/crla-and-uhler-report-controversy

[0455] California Surveillance Collection, 1929-1940, larc.ms.0124

Location: Labor Archives and Research Center, J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 460, San Francisco State University, 1630 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132-1722

Description: The California Surveillance Collection consists primarily of undercover agent reports and other materials documenting the activities of labor organizations and organizations on the left, 1934-1940, including the Communist Party of San Francisco, and labor leader Harry Bridges. The materials were possibly gathered or created by Harper Knowles during his tenure as director of the Radical Research Committee, later the Subversive Activities Committee, of the American Legion in San Francisco, and Stanley M. Doyle, an associate of Harper Knowles. Series 1: California Surveillance Files, 1934-1940, includes material on the Industrial Association, a San Francisco organization of banks and employers created in 1921 to promote the so-called American Plan, an anti-union effort based on the open shop. Also included are advertising for conservative publications; campaigns against taxes; "A Professor Quits the Communist Party" (reprinted by the Industrial Association); "CIO 'Functionaries' Compiled by American Vigilant Intelligence Federation" (August 1938); Statement by the American Legion to the Dies Committee (October 21, 1938); and a brief prepared by the American Legion, charging Harry Bridges with being subject to deportation.

Reference:

Simon James Judkins, "Under Prying Eyes: Repression, Surveillance and Exposure in California, 1918-1939" (M.A., Victoria University of Wellington, 2014), http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/bitstream/handle/­10063

/3557/thesis.pdf.

Websites with information:

http://www.library.sfsu.edu/about/depts/larc/pdfs/larc-holdings.pdf

Finding aids:

http://pdf.oac.cdlib.org/pdf/sfsu/larc/casurveillance.pdf

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c81v5fxt/entire_text/

[0455a] California Tax Reform Association Collection

Location: California History Room, California State Library, Library and Courts Building II, 900 N. Street, Room 200, P.O. Box 942837, Sacramento, California 94237-0001

Description: A group of Californians formed the California Tax Reform Association in 1976 to promote tax reform. The goals were to abolish tax privileges and loopholes, cut property tax and taxes through a more progressive income tax, eliminate levies which hinder small business and redirect the support of education, welfare, and medi-Cal away from the property tax. The collection consists of mass mailings, brochures, clippings, and newsletters.

Websites with information:

http://catalog.library.ca.gov/F/GMDTY1PH76J4KNY6F9524FJC6KPTR3GJG9RGK2UYSTE56L38MQ-27731?fun

c=full-set-set&set_number=000205&set_entry=000001&format=999

Finding aid:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf609nb104/entire_text/

[0456] California Townsend Club records, 1939-1969, Bx 181

Location: Special Collections and University Archives, Knight Library, 2nd floor North, Mail: UO Libraries--SPC, 1299 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1299

Description: Earl Tifft was the state director of the California club (chapter) of the Townsend Plan. The collection includes Townsend newsletters and convention materials, Townsend Plan constitution and bylaws, dissolution information, and testimony to the Ways and Means committee, International Members Council interviews, minutes, correspondence, financial records, reel-to-reel audio, memorabilia, a photograph, broadsides, and material from the Le Habre Townsend Club, the Pasadena Townsend Club, the Townsend Clubs of Southern California, and the Greater L.A. Advisory Council.

Websites with information:

http://library.uoregon.edu/tools/blogs/scua/newly-available-collection-california-townsend-club-records/

Finding aid:

http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv62515

[0457] California Un-American Activities Committees Records, 1935-1977, Coll. 93-04-12; 93-04-16

Location: California State Archives, 1020 "O" Street, Sacramento, California 95814

Description: In response to allegations that Communists had infiltrated the State Relief Administration, the California State Legislature began in 1940 what was to become a thirty-one-year investigation into un-American activities in California. The legislative committees, variously named, produced or received thousands of documents, audiotapes, approximately 125,000 index cards tracking an estimated 20,000 individuals or organizations, and Dictaphone audio disks. Topics include labor and labor unions; public schools and education; Hollywood and the motion picture industry; civil rights; universities and colleges (in particular, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of California-Los Angeles, and San Francisco State University); political parties (including the California Democratic Party, the American Communist Party, the Los Angeles County Communist Party, and the Black Panther Party); the Soviet Union and Soviet-American relations; Communism in China and Vietnam; fascist and Nazi movements in America; and, the anti-war and peace movements. The Committees paid attention to specific events as well, including the Alger Hiss trial.

Reference:

Records in the California State Archives for the Study of Labor History (Sacramento, California State Archives, 2015), pp. 21-22, http://archives.cdn.sos.ca.gov/pdf/ref-guide-labor.pdf.

Finding aid:

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft9p3007qg/entire_text/

[0457a] Californians to Defeat Rose Bird Collection

Location: California History Room, California State Library, Library and Courts Building II, 900 N. Street, Room 200, P.O. Box 942837, Sacramento, California 94237-0001

Description: Rose Elizabeth Bird was the first woman ever to serve on the California Supreme Court. Appointed by Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr. in January 1975, she became Chief Justice March 16, 1977. In 1985, Californians to Defeat Rose Bird, led by Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, and other citizens' groups began to campaign to remove her from office for having voted to vacate death sentences 61 times. She lost her seat in an election held in 1986. Clippings, press releases, notes, flyers, photographs, reports, audio and video tapes regarding the campaign to remove Chief Justice Rose Bird from the California Supreme Court. Files on Crime Victims for Court Reform, California Coalition for Court Reform, National Right to Work, Citizens for Law & Order, and Pro-Life Council.