American Conservatism

The Gordon Hall and Grace Hoag Collection of Dissenting and Extremist Printed Propaganda focuses on printed organizational literature, often ephemeral, created for circulation among supporters or to persuade new supporters. The collection consists largely of pamphlets and leaflets, with smaller numbers of photos, audiovisual items, manuscripts, and monographs published by individuals and organizations representing a spectrum of social and political viewpoints ranging from the far-left to the far-right from the post-World War II period to 2000. These entities include the following broad categories: culture, education, environment, gender, international relations, government, labor, media, non-extremism, politics, publishing, race, religion, sexuality, social issues, students, and violence/militarism.

Gordon Hall, a young veteran of the Pacific Theater during the war, first encountered the printed propaganda issued by domestic hate-your-neighbor organizations/groups in the late 1940's and determined that such groups were a threat to the American way of life. He documented their activities by collecting their publications and literature, supporting his investigations and research by giving public lectures on his findings.  Materials from all corners of the country were collected, enabling him to document statements made in lectures as well as in a growing number of expository articles written for newspapers and magazines. Grace Hoag, an alumna of Smith College, began collaboration with Hall during the 1960's, assisting the research and investigation and expanding the collection beyond its initial emphasis.

In 2022 the Divided America Project began to digitize letters, leaflets, pamphlets, posters, and other ephemera from the Hall-Hoag Collection. This active project will result in access to over 1 million items from thousands of organizations, making over 90% of the Hall-Hoag Collection accessible to researchers worldwide.  As of January 2025, 243,672 images from 1,310 organizations are available in the Brown Digital Repository.  The Brown Digital Repository does not include images of every document for each organization. The project does not include the digitization of newspapers, books, serials, or audiovisual materials in the collection.

• Hall-Hoag, Brown Digital Repository (https://go.brown.edu/hall-hoag): 

  Researchers navigate the digitized materials by using the organization and categories  in “Refine your results” on the left or by conducting keyword searches.  The digitized materials have undergone optical character recognition (OCR) conversion which enables keyword searching within the text of the documents.  The Hall Hoag Part I and Part II Categories reflect narrow categories created by Gordon Hall (Part I) and broad categories created by library staff (Part II).  

• Hall-Hoag Collection Database: Researchers intending to conduct comprehensive, in-depth research will find the database’s search functionality essential.  The database provides information about call numbers, categories, and containers that are needed to locate the physical materials in the collection.  Visiting the Brown University Special Collections explains how to request materials and make an appointment in the Special Collections Reading Room.

The Divided America Project received generous support from the Arcadia Fund and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Part I of the Hall Hoag collection was organized and arranged by Gordon Hall into about 100 ideological or topical categories, each of which contains material produced by organizations classified in that category. A list of the organizations assigned to each category can be found here.  Hall also assigned each organization a unique Hall Hoag (or HH) number, and researchers using Part I will need to know that number for each organization of interest since only the HH number of the organization appears on the folders housing the material produced by that organization.  That is to say, the folders are not labelled with the name of the various organizations in Part I.  Part I comprises more than  168,000 items emanating from over 5,000 organizations, constituting the country's largest research collection of right- and left- wing U.S. extremist groups between 1950 and 2000.

Part II, which was processed only after Gordon Hall's death, has just opened for research.  Because Hall was no longer available to assign each organization to one of his categories, Part II had to be arranged differently from Part I.  For this purpose, processing staff applied a range of general themes to each of the organizations found in Part II, and these themes can be used as facets to collate related groups.  More information can be found on the blog created by staff who worked on the processing of Part II. 

Box and folder information for materials in the Hall Hoag Collection can now be found in the Hall Hoag  Collection database, which encompasses both parts of the collection.

NOTE:  Some related materials were received directly from the United Fascist Union, and these are catalogued separately.

Radicalism, Reaction and Dissent (Thomson Gale microfilm set)

Part 1 of the set:  microfilm and guide includes the following ideological / topical categories from Part I of the Hall-Hoag Collection:

Ms. 76.5: Anti-Integrationist Organizations

Ms. 76.6: Anti-Jewish Racist Organizations

Ms. 76.7: Anti-Jewish Racist Political Parties

Ms. 76.20: Independent Racist Pamphleteer Right

Ms. 76.21: Ku Klux Klan Organizations

Ms. 76.72: Hate Groups Extreme Right

Part 2 of the set:  microfilm and guide includes the following ideological / topical categories from Part I of the Hall-Hoag Collection:

Ms. 76.10: Christian Identity

Ms. 76.19: Independent Pamphleteer Right

Ms. 76.26: Nazi

Ms. 76.34: Racial, Ethnic Consciousness

Ms. 76.43: Extreme Right Organization

Ms. 76.54: Extreme Right-Wing Political Party

Exhibit

Divided America: Religious Dissent & Freedom

Event
Insights into the History of the American Right from The Divided America Project Archive, Brown University (event information) (recorded event)

Hall Hoag at Brandeis                                                      (Brandeis University)

The Radicalism Collection                                                (Michigan State University)              

Social Documents Collection                                           (University of Iowa)

Social and Political Materials Collection                           (Rhode Island College)

Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project          (Duke University)

Voices of Extremism                                                        (Illinois State University)*               

     *This resource has become part of the Studies in Radicalism Online digital project

Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements  (University of Kansas)