Archives West Finding Aid

The Robert Alan Goldberg papers (1880-2019) house materials gathered by Goldberg while researching information for his books, Back to the Soil: The Jewish Farmers of Clarion, Utah, and Their World, Grassroots Resistance: Social Movements in Twentieth Century America, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America, Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado, and Barry Goldwater.

The materials for the book, Back to the Soil: The Jewish Farmers of Clarion, Utah and Their World, are housed in boxes 1-4. Clarion was a Jewish agricultural settlement which existed from 1912 to 1915, with the last members leaving in the 1920s. It was led by Benjamin Brown and other Jewish immigrants from the Pale of Russia and Poland. The colony received homestead land from the state of Utah and tried to establish an agricultural Jewish community near Gunnison in Sanpete County. The small community failed shortly after being established because of poor soil, lack of water, physical hardships, and discontent among its members. Box 1 includes the initial research proposal, and the diaries, monographs, and transcripts of interviews used to form the basis of the book. Most of these papers are in Yiddish with English translations, and were written by the leaders of the agriculture experiment. Box 2 holds two drafts of Goldberg's book. Boxes 3-4 contain correspondence with and written recollections from the survivors of Clarion and or their family members. This material is organized alphabetically by family name.

The materials for Grassroots Resistance: Social Movements in Twentieth Century America are housed in boxes 5-21. They consist of brochures, newsletters, newspapers, and membership applications from activist groups. Magazine articles and news clippings about the activities of these academic, political, religious, and or radical organizations from the 1960s-1970s era are also included. Some of the groups represented are the National Socialist White People's Party, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Christian Anti-Communists Crusade, Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, the National Organization for Women, and the Rainbow Family of Living Light. Box 5 has material on African American history and the civil rights movement from 1968 to 1972. Boxes 6-14 contain information on the various activist groups and are arranged alphabetically by group name. Box 15 houses information on activist causes prevalent in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Boxes 16-20 hold 110 different newspapers from this same era. The newspapers are from Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the activist syndicated underground press, as well as some established American newspapers. The newspaper publications are listed in alphabetical order by their published trade name with a cross reference to the publishing organization in the folder description.

Addenda to the collection includes other research and general materials.