Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements

PRISM: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movement is a collaborative digitization project of the libraries and special collections departments of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and the University of Central Florida (UCF). The materials for the digitization project are taken from the FAU Library's Socialist Series Pamphlets from the Special Collections pamphlet collection and the UCF Library's Van Sickle Leftist Pamphlet Collection.

The joint collection focuses on a wide range of political and rights issues and social movements. Spanning from the mid 19th century to the late 20th century, the pamphlets and monographs provide insight into the prevailing leftist and liberal views of the times from countries all around the world. In particular, the pamphlet collections offer a focused perspective on the thinking prevalent in the days leading up to World Wars I and II, the impact of the war efforts on general populations, the economic and social recovery after the wars, and perspectives on the turbulent times following.

The Socialist Series in the pamphlet collection of the Florida Atlantic University Library’s Special Collections includes over 1,000 late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pamphlets published by a wide variety of socialist and communist groups and their critics, both here and abroad. The pamphlets were among the book stock purchased as the library's opening day collection by Florida Atlantic University in the early 1960s from New York publisher and book dealer Burt Franklin. Publication dates run from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. Topics discussed in the pamphlets include issues of workers' rights, race and gender, religion, world economics, capitalism, the demise of colonialism, and the emergence of trade unionism. The collection includes publications of the nascent labor union movement, as well as those of its detractors.