HOWARD ZINN 1922–2010

The Ludlow Massacre of 1914

On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado. Zinn had a history PhD but only learned this story when “I heard a song by Woody Guthrie called ‘The Ludlow Massacre.’ Dark, haughting, powerful song. And that led me to look in a library about this event which nobody had ever mentioned in any of my history courses, which no textbook of mine had ever mentioned.” Learn more

“Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest”

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn (1922-2010), the Midwestern Archivist granted rights to publish “Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest" (1977). Influential still today, Zinn urges archivists to “One, engage in a campaign to open all government documents to the public. . . . And two, that they take the trouble to compile a whole new world of documentary material, about the lives, desires, needs, of ordinary people.”
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