 Anarchist historian Barry Pateman (left), at the Kate Sharpley Library booth at the 2011 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. | |
| Abbreviation | KSL |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1979 |
| Purpose | Historical society |
| Website | katesharpleylibrary.net |
The Kate Sharpley Library (or KSL) is a library dedicated to anarchist texts and history. Started in 1979 and reorganized in 1991, it currently holds around ten thousand English language volumes, pamphlets and periodicals.
The Kate Sharpley Library was named after a Deptford-born World War I anarchist and anti-war activist. She worked in a munitions factory and was active in the shop stewards movement. Her brother William Sharpley and her father were killed in action and her boyfriend was listed as missing believed killed (though she suspected he had been shot for mutiny). [1] At the age of 22, when called to receive her family's medals from Queen Mary she threw the medals back at the Queen, saying "if you like them so much you can have them". [2]
The Queen's face was scratched, Kate Sharpley was beaten by police, and imprisoned for a few days, though no charges were brought against her. She did however lose her job. After marrying in 1922, she dropped out of anarchist activities until a chance encounter with Albert Meltzer at a train station during an anti-fascist action. This led to her meeting many younger activists and so, when Brixton anarchists came to name the archives they had collected from the movement, her name was chosen in preference to a more famous one. [2]
The library has texts in English and other languages, near complete collections of several anarchist newspapers, and collections of reports and literature from various anarchist organisations. The library is maintained by donations and money made from sales of pamphlets and other publications. As of 2014 it was receiving one or two in-person visits per month and the bulk of the research requests arrived by email. [3]
The library was begun in the squatted 121 Centre in Brixton, London in 1979 by a collective which included Albert Meltzer. It had both lending and reference sections. When the centre was raided in 1984, the archive was moved to a different squat for safety. [4] When the library was moved to the safety of Barry Pateman's home in 1991, the focus shifted towards being a special collection and archive. [3]
After being located in Northampton between 1991 and 1999, the library was moved again, this time to a renovated barn at the home of Barry Pateman and Jessica Moran in California. [4]
As well as preserving the physical artifacts of anarchist history, the library also publishes books and pamphlets on anarchism and anarchist history, covering many subjects that would otherwise be forgotten. Its activities are recounted in its regular Bulletin, available online and by mail to its financial supporters. [3]
Authors it has published or re-published include Miguel Garcia, Albert Meltzer, David Nicoll, Abel Paz, Antonio Téllez, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Albert Isidore Meltzer was an English anarcho-communist activist and writer.
Anarchism in the United Kingdom initially developed within the religious dissent movement that began after the Protestant Reformation. Anarchism was first seen among the radical republican elements of the English Civil War and following the Stuart Restoration grew within the fringes of radical Whiggery. The Whig politician Edmund Burke was the first to expound anarchist ideas, which developed as a tendency that influenced the political philosophy of William Godwin, who became the first modern proponent of anarchism with the release of his 1793 book Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.
AK Press is a worker-managed, independent publisher and book distributor that specializes in publishing books about anarchism and the radical left. Operated out of Chico, California, the company is collectively owned.
Stuart Christie was a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher. When aged 18, Christie was arrested while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish caudillo, General Francisco Franco. He was later alleged to be a member of the Angry Brigade, but was acquitted of related charges. He went on to found the Cienfuegos Press publishing house, as well as radical publications The Free-Winged Eagle and The Hastings Trawler, and in 2006 the online Anarchist Film Channel, which hosts films and documentaries with anarchist and libertarian socialist themes. His memoir Granny Made Me an Anarchist was published in 2004.
Paul Avrich was a historian of the 19th and early 20th century anarchist movement in Russia and the United States. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for his entire career, from 1961 to his retirement as distinguished professor of history in 1999. He wrote ten books, mostly about anarchism, including topics such as the 1886 Haymarket Riot, 1921 Sacco and Vanzetti case, 1921 Kronstadt naval base rebellion, and an oral history of the movement.
Hippolyte Havel (1871–1950) was an American anarchist who was known as an activist in the United States and part of the radical circle around Emma Goldman in the early 20th century. He had been imprisoned as a young man in Austria-Hungary because of his political activities, but made his way to London. Then in the British metropolis he met anarchist Emma Goldman on a lecture tour from the United States. She befriended him and he immigrated to the United States.
Miguel García García (1908–1981) was a Spanish anarchist and writer. He was a political prisoner during the Franco era.
Anarchist Manifesto is a work by Anselme Bellegarrigue, notable for being the first manifesto of anarchism. It was written in 1850, two years after his participation in the French Revolution of 1848, and ten years after Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's seminal What Is Property?. It was translated into English by Paul Sharkey and republished in 2002 as a 42-page political pamphlet by the Kate Sharpley Library with an introduction placing the manifesto in historical context by Anarchist Studies editor Sharif Gemie.
CIRA is an anarchist archive, infoshop and library of anarchist material in different languages based in Lausanne, Switzerland with other branches in Marseille and Fujinomiya, Japan.
The First of May Group was an anarchist anti-Franco resistance movement which took militant action against Francoist Spain. They were formed in 1966 by Spanish exiles including Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (FIJL) members in France, dissatisfied with what they perceived as the quietism of other opposition groups. Actions attributed to the group include the kidnapping of diplomat and priest Monsignor Marcos Ussia, occupation of the Vatican Embassy an in 1966 and the machine-gunning of the Spanish embassy in London. A man claiming to speak for the group stated that they were behind the March 1974 bombing of the Spanish Cultural Institute in Dublin. In 1980 the book Towards a citizens militia: anarchist alternatives to NATO and the Warsaw pact was written by 'International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement and published by Cienfuegos Press.
Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas is a three-volume anthology of anarchist writings edited by historian Robert Graham. The anthology is published by Black Rose Books. Each selection is introduced by Graham, placing each author and selection in their historical and ideological context. The focus of the anthology is on the origins and development of anarchist ideas; it is not a documentary history of the world's anarchist movements, although the selections are geographically diverse.
Alexei Alexeyevich Borovoi (1875–1935) was a Russian individualist anarchist writer, orator, teacher and propagandist.
Henry Albert Seymour was an English secularist, individualist anarchist, gramophone innovator and survey author, and Baconian. He published the first English language anarchist periodical in Britain and is credited, in 1913, with introducing the Edison disc into the country.
Cassius V. Cook was an American anarchist activist, writer and publisher.
121 Centre was a squatted self-managed social centre on Railton Road in Brixton, south London from 1981 until 1999. As an anarchist social centre, the venue hosted a bookshop, cafe, infoshop, library, meeting space, office space, printing facility, and rehearsal space. Organisations using the space included Food Not Bombs, Anarchist Black Cross prisoner aid chapters, an anarcho-feminist magazine, a squatters aid organisation, and an anarchist queer group. Regular events at 121 Centre included punk concerts, a women's cafe night, and a monthly queer night. The centre kept a low profile and was one of the longest-lasting squats in London.
Anarchist archives preserve records from the international anarchist movement in personal and institutional collections around the world. This primary source documentation is made available for researchers to learn directly from movement anarchists, both their ideas and lives.
Anarchism in Hungary emerged from the social democratic movement in the late 19th century, coming to play a prominent role in the anti-militarist movement during World War I and in the subsequent revolution that culminated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The anarchist movement was then repressed by the Horthy regime, before re-emerging as part of the anti-fascist resistance movement during World War II. This second wave of anarchism was also repressed, this time by the newly established communist regime. Anarchist ideas were briefly expressed during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but remained largely suppressed until the fall of socialism, which gave way to a third wave of anarchism in Hungary.
Tom Brown (1900–1974) was a British anarcho-syndicalist trade unionist, anti-fascist, engineer and writer. Brown contributed articles to papers including War Commentary, Freedom, and Direct Action alongside authoring numerous pamphlets. Brown was known for his compelling public speaking and ability to communicate effectively in everyday terms. He placed a strong emphasis on federated local groups rather than centralism, and on workplace-based revolutionary trade unionism.
William MacQueen was a British anarchist, trade unionist, newspaper editor and public speaker.
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