Washington State University Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections
Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA
(509) 335-6691
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/masc/
mascref@wsu.edu
Cage
172
Fox, Jay
Jay Fox Papers
1910-1951
1 container.
.5 linear feet of shelf space.
100 items.
Correspondence, drafts, notes,
membership cards and certificates, newspaper clippings and published material
by or about Jay Fox.
Collection materials are in
English
Jay Fox, trade unionist, syndicalist, communist and anarchist, lived
more than fifty years in the small farming community of Home, Washington on
Puget Sound. Fox, born in 1870, took part in the Haymarket riot while still in
his teens. After an active career as a union organizer, which brought him to
the Pacific Northwest, he joined the anarchist Mutual Home Colony Association,
usually know as the Home Colony. For an interesting view of the life and
activities at the colony see Stewart Holbrook's
Anarchists at Home (American Scholar, 15 (Autumn 1946)
425-438). For a more thorough account of colony's experiences, and a brief
biography of Jay Fox, see Charles P. LeWarne's chapter on the Home Colony in
his
Communitarian Experiments in Western Washington, 1885-1915
(Unpublished dissertation, University of Washington, 1969).
At Home, Fox served as editor of
The Agitator, the colony newspaper, a successor to those
previously suppressed by the U.S. Post Office. During this period his editorial
defense of colonists who were arrested for nude bathing brought him into the
public eye when he was prosecuted for "encouraging or advocating disrespect for
the law." Although an isolated rural area, Home had considerable contact with
scores of radical political and social thinkers, including Emma Goldman, James
F. Morton, Elbert Hubbard and Fox's old friend from union organizing days,
William Z. Foster. His death, in 1961, was within months of Fosters.
The papers consist of correspondence, drafts, notes, membership cards
and certificates, newspaper clippings, broadsides and pamphlets by or about
Fox. His manuscript autobiography entitled
Syndicalism: its growth and decay described by Terry
Pettus (
Sixty-four years a union man. Our World, a weekly
publication of The Daily People's World (February 16, 1951) 4-7), is not among
these papers and no other record of it has been found. Some of the books,
pamphlets and newspapers acquired by the WSU Library from Douglas Owens may
have once been a part of the Home Colony Library, but only the one indicated
here has any notation of ownership.
This collection is open for research use.
[Item Description]. Cage
172, Jay Fox Papers
. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The papers of American radical Jay Fox were purchased by Washington
State University Library as part of a collection of radical books and pamphlets
from Douglas Owens in 1971.
The activities of Theodore Schroeder and the Free Speech League,
predecessor to the American Civil Liberties Union, in Fox's behalf are
documented in the Schroeder Papers at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
(NUCMC 71-1877).
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online
catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or
places should search the catalog using these headings.
Fox, Jay, 1870-1961 --Archives
Home (Wash.)--History--Sources
Labor unions --
Washington (State)--Officials and employees
Labor
History
Government and Politics
Washington (State)
Anarchists--United States--Biography
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in
the collection.
1
Dialectic
undated
3 l. ms., 2 clippings.
2
Bunker Hill
undated
7 l. ms. (on Montana hotel stationery).
3
[The youth of Home]
undated
3 l. ms.
4
Man and his machine by Jay
Fox
1934
2 l. typescript.
4
Postcards from Marcus Graham to Jay
Fox, re: editorial changes to his article submitted to Man!
March 1934
2 items.
5
The voyage of Columb' [a
poem]
undated
1 l. typescript.
6
Letter, Ernest Lister, Washington
State Governor, to A. B. Bell, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Pierce County, re:
pardon for Jay Fox.
July 22, 1915
1 l. typescript (carbon)
7
Letter, J. G. Brown, President,
International Union of Shingle Weavers, Sawmill Workers and Woodsmen, "to whom
it may concern," certifying that Jay Fox is a union representative
March 17, 1914
1 l. typescript signed.
7
Organizer certificates from the
American Federation of Labor, signed by Samuel Gompers.
1914
1915
1917
3 items.
8
The nude and the prudes by J.
F.[Clipping from Home Agitator, which lead to Fox's arrest]
1910
1 item,
tearsheet.
9
Letters to Jack Lumber [a series of
editorial articles by Fox in The Timberworker, some with annotations and
corrections].
1914
approx. 30 items,
clippings.
10
Letter, Jay Fox, to the Editor of
the [Tacoma?] Ledger: "The problem of the surplus,
May 26, 1932.
1 item,
clipping.
11
History of the Eight-Hour Day by
Jay Fox, Chicago Labor News
September 15, 1916
1 item,
clipping.
12
I was at Haymarket by Jay Fox, Our
World [supplement to People's World]
April 27, 1951
1 item,
clipping.
13
Miscellaneous papers. Includes
carbon of a letter to the Circulation Manager of the Tacoma News Tribune,
undated; bank statement, December 1929; blank letterheads of The Plumb Plan
League and The International Trade Union League, undated.
1914-1929
7 items.
14
Writings: stories, letters,
articles by David Fox? [some may be drafts of Jay Fox]
1910
16
items.
15
Marked article: "The Fool" by L.
Augustine Motler, The Link
May 1912
1 item,
clipping.
15
Clipped poems and package wrapping
addressed to Mrs. Cora Fox.
undated
4 items.
16
Membership and business cards of
Jay Fox
1905-1919
8 items.
17
Handbills and programs of Jay Fox's
speeches
1902-1923
7 items (two with manuscript
notes for speech)
18
I.W.W. handbills
1917-1960
5 items (plus concessionaire
tickets)
19
Invitation to Home reunion picnic,
Los Angeles
August 1944
1 item.
20
Photograph: Free speech
demonstration, Vancouver, B. C. postcard, J. H. to M. Salsnes [in
Swedish?]
January 28, 1912
1 item.
20
Photograph: Rioting in Butte,
postcard
undated
1 item.
20
Photograph: Storefront "Lovell
Local 1001, I.W.W.
undated
1 item.
20
Photograph: Portrait of Jay
Fox
1950
1 item.
20
Photograph: Spring art
photograph
1910
1 item.
21
Sixty-four years a union man [a
biography of Jay Fox] by Terry Pettus. Our World
February 16, 195l
1 item, clipping.
22
Fox, Jay. Roosevelt, Czolgosz and
anarchy by Jay Fox and Communism by Henry Addis. N.Y., Published by the New
York Anarchists,
undated
15 p.
23
Fox, Jay. Trade unionism and
anarchism, a letter to a brother unionist, by Jay Fox. Chicago, Social Science
Press
1908
16 p front., port.
24
[Schroeder, Theodore]. The free
speech case of Jay Fox. N. Y., Free Speech League. Also includes "Intellectual
hospitality" by Theodore Schroeder and "Advocating murder" by Sir Leslie
Stephen.
April 1912
10 p.
25
Wakeman, Thaddeus Burr. Addresses
of Thaddeus Burr Wakeman at and in reference to the first Monist Congress at
Hamburg, in September 1911. Cos Cob, Conn., Toussaint Farm. Cover inscription:
Home, Washington Library with compliments of Libby Culbertson Macdonald. Oct.
7th, 1914.
1913.
58 p. front., port.