Robert Reed Northwest Volunteers Research Project Records
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Abstract
Robert Reed was a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who lived for many years in the Seattle area. In the late 1970s, with the help of fellow veteran Oiva Halonen, he undertook a research project to document the lives of Lincoln Brigade volunteers who came from or were associated with the Pacific Northwest. The collection consists of background files on the project and files of clippings, reminiscences and other biographical material on 54 individual veterans.
Historical/Biographical Note
Robert Reed (1914-2005) was an Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran, born in Rodney, Texas, who spent much of his later life in the Seattle area. Prior to his Spanish civil war service, Reed had worked as a tenant farm organizer with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. After returning from Spain he served in the U.S Army during World War II, and after the War was a Communist Party activist in Detroit. He eventually earned a Masters in Social Work at the University of Washington, following which he directed a service center for residents of a low-income housing community. Throughout his life, Reed participated in a great many progressive political organizations and campaigns: he was especially active in opposing U.S interventions in Central America throughout the 1980s.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Reed decided, along with fellow veteran Oiva Halonen (1912-1981), to undertake a history of other Spanish Civil War volunteers with some association to the Pacific Northwest (specifically from the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington). They wished to obtain biographical information on volunteers who either lived in the region before they went to Spain, or who settled there at a later point in their lives. Halonen died in 1981 but Reed continued with this project until its completion in 1994.
In the process of obtaining biographical, photographic and other research material on these individual veterans, Reed was in regular contact with ALBA archivist Victor Berch, and received research assistance from several others, particularly University of Washington Historian Joan Ullman, student assistant Jeremy Egolf, and Linn Shapiro, who obtained important material from the National Archives. Ultimately, documentary material was collected on over 100 volunteers with a definite presence in the Pacific Northwest at some point in their lives, along with a list of 19 other volunteers whose connections were less clear. Reed completed his research at the beginning of 1994, and made a few additions and corrections in 1995, whereupon he deposited these materials in both the ALBA and the University of Washington archives.
Arrangement
Biographical files are arranged alphabetically.
The files are grouped into one series:
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- I, Background and Biographical Files.
Scope and Content Note
Series 1: Background and Biographical Files, consists of the materials obtained by Reed in the process of his research. They range from news clippings, interviews, and photographic reproductions, to the reminiscences of family members and colleagues of particular ALBA veterans (often other Northwest volunteers). Following the introductory material describing the organization of the collection, and the lists of all the known Northwest volunteers by category (described by Reed as the "notebook"), there are more detailed folders on 54 individual veterans. In addition to Reed and Halonen, noteworthy volunteers included here are the African-American poet Ramen Durem, Evelyn Hutchins (the sole female of this group), and the Chicago activist Milt Cohen. The collection concludes with a file of more general material from the 1930s and later, in which specific Northwest volunteers are mentioned.
The materials cover a wide historical period, chronicling not just wartime activities, but the prior and subsequent lives of many volunteers. Many were involved in the Communist Party and/or other progressive organizations and trade unions, so a major recurring theme is the impact of McCarthyism and other anti-left campaigns on their subsequent careers. The involvement of many in later progressive causes (such as Reed's effort to obtain ambulances for the Sandinista government in Nicaragua) is also described.
Reed divided up his subjects by 3 categories: 1st, volunteers who went to Spain from the Northwest, 2nd, those who lived in the Northwest at some other point in their lives, and finally, a "maybe" list of people whose possible association to the Northwest region was unclear. In the introductory and "category" folders, particular volunteers appear alphabetically under each rubric. The 54 more detailed biographical folders are in alphabetical order across the first two categories.
Finally, the researcher should be aware of occasional discrepancies in names, spellings and birth dates of particular Northwest volunteers; in all such cases, he or she should refer to the third item in the introductory folder of Box 1, which represents Reed's final corrections of all such cases in which such discrepancies occur.
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Access Restrictions
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Use Restrictions
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), were transferred to New York University in November 2000 by the ALBA Board of Governors. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. For more information, contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.
Provenance
Copies of the Robert Reed Northwest Volunteers Research Project Records were donated to both the University of Washington and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) by Robert Reed in 1995. This collection came to New York University in January 2001 as part of the original acquisition of ALBA collections, formerly housed at Brandeis University.
Separated Material
Photographs were separated from the Robert Reed Northwest Volunteers Research Project Records in the course of processing.
