Newswise — The archives of the national association founded by community organizer Saul Alinsky are available for viewing at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Industrial Areas Foundation collection contains 172 file boxes of photographs, training materials, organizers' field reports, campaign materials, correspondence, annual reports and newspaper clippings from 1952 through 2004. The archives include records of such community groups as the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council and The Woodlawn Organization, both still active in Chicago.
The collection documents social movements around the United States that used Alinsky's organizing tactics to improve housing, employment and education for lower-income people. It also contains information about redlining and blockbusting during the 1950s, segregation in the Chicago Public Schools, attempts to integrate Lake Michigan beaches, voter registration drives, and fights against dishonest merchants, according to Julia Hendry, UIC assistant special collections librarian.
"There's also quite a bit of information on the influential FIGHT organization founded in Rochester in the wake of the 1964 race riots," Hendry said, referring to the organization known for persuading Kodak to hire and train African Americans.
With funding from Marshall Field III, Alinsky established the Industrial Areas Foundation in 1940 as an umbrella organization for the local activist groups he was forming and training across the country. He taught the groups to use controversy to appeal to the self-interests of opposing constituencies, uniting them in a common cause. He urged citizens to raise funds to maintain democratic organizations with officers, regular meetings, and single-issue campaigns.
Materials produced before 1968 document the foundation under Alinsky. Those produced between 1968 and 1973 reflect a transitional period when the foundation set up a training institute to teach the skills Alinsky had taught on the street. Materials dated after Alinsky's death in 1972 reflect the current foundation's detailed procedures for organizing.
The collection, processed by UIC with financial support from the Industrial Areas Foundation, can be viewed in the library's special collections department. Documents are listed at www.uic.edu/depts/lib/specialcoll/services/rjd/findingaids/IAFf.html
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