Tamiment Institute Records
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Abstract
The Tamiment Institute was founded in 1935 as the educational arm of the People's Educational Camp Society (PECS), which owned and operated Camp Tamiment, an educational and recreational summer resort (originally) for socialists and their families near Bushkill, in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. The Institute organized lectures, conferences and seminars, essay contests, and book awards at the Camp and in New York City. The Collection contains clippings, correspondence, conference and seminar papers, essays, programs, administrative and financial records, and photographs.
Historical/Biographical Note
The Tamiment Institute was founded in 1935 as the educational arm of the People's Educational Camp Society (PECS), which owned and operated Camp Tamiment, originally a resort for socialists. The Institute organized lectures, an annual conference (1930s-40s) that focused on labor, industrial relations and related issues, seminars, an annual essay contest for college students, an annual book award (beginning in 1950), and concerts. These activities took place at the Camp and in New York City. The seminars featured prominent liberal and social-democratic intellectuals of the day, and were jointly sponsored with Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, from 1958 to 1962. Topics included the Cold War, the city, and mass culture. Upon the 1956 closure and absorption of the Rand School of Social Science (a New York City school for workers and socialists, with close ties with the American socialist movement, founded in 1906) by PECS, the Institute undertook the reorganization of the Rand School's Meyer London Memorial Library, reopened in 1957 as the Tamiment Institute Library, which it then donated it to New York University in 1963. In 1960 the Institute established the quarterly periodical Labor History. The Institute also published the New Leader, successor to the New York Call.
Arrangement
The records are organized into three series:
I. Records
II. Photographs
III. Addendum: Administrative and Financial Records and Correspondence (Unprocessed)
Folders are arranged in alphabetical order by title within the processed portion of the collection; unprocessed materials have not been arranged by archivist.
Scope and Contents
Contains correspondence, documents, and a small number of photographs relating to the Tamiment Institute's various activities, including its annual conferences, book awards, and essay contest for college students. The collection also includes adminstrative and financial records for the Institute.
Subjects
Organizations
Genres
People
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, created by the Tamiment Institute, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Tamiment Institute Records; TAM 007.004; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by the People's Educational Camp Society, 1963. The accession numbers associated with this gift are 1963.003, 1963.011, and 2010.103.
A List of Donations Made by Robert D. Bloom in Memory of Louis P. Goldberg was found in the repository. The accession number associated with this material is 2014.047.
Custodial History
The Tamiment Institute Records were transferred to New York University in 1963 by the People's Educational Camp Society (later renamed the Tamiment Institute), as part of a larger transfer of records of the Rand School of Social Science and of organizations associated with the founding and maintenance of the School (including the American Socialist Society, The Society of the Commonwealth Center, and the People's Educational Camp Society) as well as the contents of the School's library, the Meyer London Memorial Library. Additional records were donated in later years, whose likely source is the New York City law firm of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard.
A List of Donations Made by Robert D. Bloom in Memory of Louis P. Goldberg was found in the repository. The accession number associated with this material is 2014.047.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Photographs from this collection were established as a separate collection, Tamiment Institute Photographs (PHOTOS 195). In January 2014, this photographs collection was reincorporated into the Tamiment Institute Records (TAM 007.4).