Search

Collections

The East Side Freedom Library currently holds books, journals, records, original works of art, and posters.

The ESFL’s collection is focused on the following subjects:

  • Labor and working-class history and literature
  • U.S. immigration history
  • African American and African diasporic history
  • Asian American and Asian history
  • Latinx histories
  • Political-economic history, U.S. and global
  • Women’s history and feminism(s)
  • Political philosophy
  • Jazz and radical music history
  • Historical methods and historiography, including oral histories
  • Critical theories
Hmong Archives

Hmong Archives is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit located inside the East Side Freedom Library—a repository for collecting and preserving Hmong materials, reflecting the history of Hmong people. With over 223,676 items, Hmong Archives’ mission is to document the story of the Hmong communities in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as those around the world.

Hy Berman Collection

Hy Berman was known internationally as an expert on Labor History. He was also a leader in the development of Jewish Studies. In Minnesota he was often referred to as our State Historian as he spoke on public radio and television about the history of Minnesota politics and the relationship between Labor History and Immigrant History in Minnesota, especially on the Iron Range.

Hy Berman’s books were donated to the East Side Freedom Library by his family after his death on November 29th, 2015. His collection includes books about Labor History, Immigration History, Jewish History, and Minnesota History. His own writings include The American Worker in the 20th Century (with Eli Ginzberg, 1963), Political Antisemitism in Minnesota during the Great Depression (1979), Jews in Minnesota (with Linda Mack Schloff, 2002). The University of Minnesota Press published Professor Berman: The Last Lecture of Minnesota’s Greatest Public Historian edited by Jay Weiner in November 2019.

Donna Gabaccia and Jeffrey Pilcher Collection

Donna Gabaccia and Jeffrey Pilcher have long shared an interest in the ways that food can studied as a window into the dynamics of immigrants and ethnic cultures. Both taught at the University of Minnesota, where Donna was also the Executive Director of the Immigration History Research Center, and both are now members of the History faculty at the University of Toronto. Their materials highlight the histories and transformations of foodways among immigrants and their children, and they will be used in the ESFL’s planned courses which will use food and restaurants to explore immigrant cultures on the East Side.

Fred Ho Collection

Fred Ho was a leading figure in avant-garde jazz from the 1970s through the 2010s, and he was also a scholar of culture and politics and a political activist. Fred’s passions and interests brought him to the Twin Cities on many occasions, for a residencies at the Walker Art Center and Macalester College, and as a recipient of a McKnight Composer’s Fellowship. Fred also collaborated with the Hotel and Restaurant Workers’ Union (HERE Local 17) and its diverse membership. Before his death in 2014, Fred shipped 100 boxes of materials — books, recordings, notes, and more — to the ESFL for inclusion in our holdings.

Benjamin Mchie Collection

Benjamin Mchie is the founder and executive director of The African American Registry. The Registry is one of the most comprehensive databases of African American heritage online containing thousands of historical nuggets and hundreds of videos. The Registry draws more than 80,000 unique visitors a month from more than 150 countries and territories.

Ben grew up in a working-class neighborhood, near 40th and Clinton in south Minneapolis. He and his friends spent their free time in sports, especially baseball; ice skating, dancing and even participating in an urban 4-H Club. He became interested in theater in high school, and often appeared in high school plays.

Ben received his B.A. in Speech Communication from California State University Long Beach in 1974. He came back to the Twin Cities and spent over 30 years behind a microphone on local radio as a disc jockey and as an independent camera operator for local TV stations, ESPN and other outlets.

David Montgomery Collection

David Montgomery was one of the founders of the modern field of labor history. He and his family lived in Saint Paul’s Rondo neighborhood in the 1950s and early 1960s, when David first worked at Honeywell and was a shop steward in the United Electrical Workers’ Union (UE), and then became a graduate student in History at the University of Minnesota. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh and Yale University. His widow, Martel, generously shipped fifteen boxes of David’s personal library to the Freedom Library. His materials reflect his interest in international labor history and include a number of rare and original publications.

Paula Rabinowitz Collection

Paula Rabinowitz’s research and teaching are in the areas of American materialist feminist cultural studies. Her work considers the interlocking roles of cinema, photography, painting and material culture in and through twentieth-century literature. She focuses on contemporary and modernist American women’s art and literature; her work explores hidden histories within working-class, pulp and popular cultures.

Paula donated her collection of over 2000 books, feminist journals, poetry chapbooks, pamphlets, and other materials to the East Side Freedom Library (ESFL) in 2016 when she retired from the University of Minnesota’s English Department. They are organized around the evolution of feminist thought, especially literary and film theory. Her books also include many classics from the second wave women’s movement of the 1960s-1980s.

Toni Randolph Collection

Toni Randolph was a veteran award-winning journalist and a long-time news editor for Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) from 2003-2016. Toni died unexpectedly in July of 2016 at the age of 53 after being hospitalized for a medical procedure.

Toni’s collection of books was donated posthumously to ESFL in 2017 by her brother Marvin and her close friend Arleta Little. They are organized around the histories and stories of African American people, especially women, from the time of enslavement to the present. They include fiction and poetry, as well as historical studies.

Peter Rachleff Collection

Peter Rachleff is the founding co-executive director of the ESFL. He taught labor, African American, and immigration history for more than thirty years, primarily at Macalester College and Metropolitan State University. Peter’s publications include BLACK LABOR IN RICHMOND, 1865-1890, and HARD-PRESSED IN THE HEARTLAND: THE HORMEL STRIKE AND THE FUTURE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. Peter’s materials at ESFL include extensive collections in labor, African American, and immigration history.

David Roediger Collection

David Roediger’s first book, THE WAGES OF WHITENESS, has had a huge impact on the study of labor history since its appearance in 1991. David has taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Illinois, and he is now a member of the American Studies faculty at the University of Kansas and the president of the American Studies Association. He has authored a number of books which continue to stir up labor historians, most recently SEIZING FREEDOM (Verso, 2014). David’s materials at the ESFL include critical texts in labor and African American history.

Sal Salerno Collection

Salvatore Salerno has long been one of this country’s leading scholars on labor and cultural activism among Italian immigrant workers, particularly in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, California State University, Sacramento and in the Sociology departments at Macalester College, Metropolitan State University, and Minneapolis Community and Technical College. He is currently a professor on the Community Faculty staff of Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Sal’s collection of materials donated to ESFL includes rare items in working class poetry and fiction, as well as original documents pertaining to the prosecution and deportation of Italian labor activists.

Naomi Scheman Collection

Naomi Scheman is a former Professor of Philosophy and Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. She began her career at the University in 1979 and retired in the spring of 2016.

Naomi donated her collection of books to ESFL in 2016-2017. They are organized around feminist theory, especially philosophy and political theory. Her books range from the historical foundations of feminist theory in the mid-20th century to recent arguments from the early 21st century.

Naomi has written four books: Engenderings: Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege1993, Is Academic Feminism Dead? 2000; Feminist Interpretations of Wittgenstein 2002 and most recently Shifting Ground: Knowledge & Reality, Transgression & Trust 2011. She has also written a large number of peer-reviewed articles, commentaries and presentations.

Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League Collection

The National Japanese American Citizens League is the nation’s oldest and largest Asian American Civil Rights Organization. It was founded in 1929 to address issues of discrimination targeted specifically at persons of Japanese ancestry residing in the United States.

The TC-JACL has donated a large collection of materials to ESFL dealing with Classroom Resources on World War II History and the Japanese American Experience. This includes DVD’s and Books for Elementary and Young Adult Students; Books for Adults including Nonfiction Books, Biography/Memoir Incarceration, Concentration Camps, Redress, Japanese American History; Japanese History and Culture; Military 442nd/100th/MIS, Poetry and Fiction and Historical Fiction.

The Twin Cities chapter was formed and instituted in 1946 and held its first Executive Meeting and regular business meeting in April of 1948. At that time the group took the name United Citizens League (UCL). The UCL changed its name to the Twin Cities Japanese American Citizens League in 1962.

Matt Witt Collection

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Matt Witt was the editor of the UNITED MINEWORKERS’ JOURNAL, the official monthly publication of the United Mine Workers’ Union. He later served in the national communications departments of the Teamsters and the Service Employees’ unions, and then founded his own project, the American Labor Education Project. Matt’s materials include historical and autobiographical accounts of coal miners and labor activists.

Jump to collection:
Book Donations

The East Side Freedom Library is unable to accept most donations of books and other materials, including personal libraries. This policy is due to serious space constraints. Any unsolicited materials dropped off at the library without prior approval will be redistributed to our Little Free Library or other locations.

If you feel your potential gift is of critical research interest to the Libraries (rare or unique items only) or archival/unpublished materials/personal papers, please contact us to discuss the matter.

Contact Special Collections at: collections@eastsidefreedomlibrary.org

Skip to content