We have begun our summer processing work again! There will be 14 students working this summer to organize the Hall Hoag collection. We have been coming across some really interesting items.

I wanted to share one in particular this week. We found a letter from Howard Zinn written to Grace Hoag. Zinn became well known for writing The People’s History of The United States. He was also a professor at Boston University, where he was working when he wrote this letter. This is a response, dated June 3, 1968 to a letter written by Grace Hoag to Zinn asking about the “communist manipulation of demonstrations.”

The Hall Hoag collection is named in honor of Grace Hoag who was a collaborator of Gordon Hall. Hoag attended meetings and rallies of various groups and brought back their literature and was instrumental in the sorting and organizing the materials.

Howard Zinn Letter 1968