Stanford Stewards Newly Acquired ACLU NorCal Archives
Digitized ACLU newsletters deliver a distinct, behind-the-scenes look at decades of civil rights advocacy in California.
Stanford University Libraries has launched a new online Spotlight Exhibit featuring a nearly complete run of ACLU News, published by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU NorCal) from the 1930s to the present. This exhibit showcases a significant collection received at Stanford in 2025 from the California Historical Society (CHS), highlighting decades of advocacy, legal milestones, and social movements that have shaped civil liberties in the United States. It offers enhanced search capabilities for easy access to digitized copies of the newsletters for researchers, educators, and the public, providing a vital resource for understanding the ongoing struggle for civil rights and the enduring impact of ACLU NorCal's work.
ACLU NorCal was established in the tumultuous year of 1934, when the West Coast waterfront strike and the San Francisco general strike took place. Its newsletter, first published in 1936, chronicles significant events such as the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans, loyalty oaths, HUAC hearings, and various social movements advocating for Free Speech, anti-war efforts, and civil rights. It also addresses critical issues surrounding abortion, immigration, and gay rights, as well as privacy and censorship challenges that arose with the rise of the Internet. Furthermore, the newsletter highlights hundreds of cases that protect the rights of protesters, prisoners, the homeless, job applicants, workers, Medi-Cal patients, and students.
Gigi Harney, Principal Communications Strategist of Creative at ACLU NorCal, served as the point person for the initial preservation and digitization of ACLU News in 2020. “Our staff have long recognized the importance of history, and we wanted to share our newsletters with the public to help tell the story of civil liberties in California. Since we had an established relationship with the California Historical Society for housing our legal archives, we knew they would be the perfect partner,” she explained.
Harney, who has continued to coordinate the project following the archive's transition to Stanford in 2025, added, “Our history at ACLU NorCal is now so easily searchable that it inspires our staff almost daily. We use it not only to look up specific cases but also to explore how various issues were handled in the past or to read insights from attorneys who filed cases decades ago, offering a glimpse into public sentiment at that time. The diligent reporters of our historic newsletters created a true time capsule that documents the civil rights challenges we've faced and how we fought back against unjust situations. The Spotlight Exhibit at Stanford has already exceeded our expectations, and we look forward to expanding it even further in the future.”
Frances Kaplan, Archivist for the CHS Collection at Stanford and former library director at CHS, stated, “This is quite a nice example of a long-term relationship with the donor of an accruing collection, beginning in 2007 with the donation of the ACLU NorCal records. Today, we hold the complete legal case files of ACLU NorCal from its foundation in 1934 through 2000. Some of these cases were also discussed in the newsletters, making these two collections invaluable and complementary resources. Researchers studying civil rights cases in Northern California can also consult related materials donated to CHS, such as the Sol Nitzberg scrapbooks and papers, which document a notorious incident of vigilante violence in Santa Rosa in 1935, and the Joseph R. Goodman papers on Japanese American incarceration.”
Digital archivists Al Bersch and David Krah, both formerly with CHS, were instrumental in transferring the digital files of the newsletters to Stanford. Bersch, who incorporated feedback from researchers at ACLU NorCal to improve discoverability for the Spotlight Exhibit, noted, “Importantly, the ability to perform free text searches across multiple newsletters was identified as a crucial unmet need. The Spotlight platform enables users to search terms across OCR-ed text, rather than just within a single page, making it well-suited as an entry point for text-based collections like the newsletters.”
The recent release of the exhibit allows users to filter searches by date range and topic, utilizing names and subjects provided by ACLU NorCal during the original accession at CHS, and to browse the newsletters sorted by decade. “In the coming months, we plan to introduce browse categories that highlight specific cases and topics addressed in the newsletters, as well as add new issues to the exhibit as they are published. We are also working on an additional Spotlight Exhibit focused on Open Forum, the newsletter of the ACLU of Southern California,” Bersch added.
"Our collaboration with ACLU NorCal demonstrates the commitment of both organizations, along with the former California Historical Society, to promote civil liberties and preserve their history, serving as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle for civil rights,” said Michael A. Keller, the Ida M. Green University Librarian at Stanford. He added, “This exhibit of the ACLU News encourages critical engagement with the legacy of civil rights advocacy and inspires ongoing dialogue about the future of civil liberties in our nation. We invite everyone to join us in celebrating this important addition to Stanford’s extensive collections of civil rights papers and photographs and to our collective understanding of history and justice.”
This article is the sixth in a series about the California Historical Society Collection at Stanford University Libraries. More information can be found on the CHS Collection at Stanford website. Please direct all inquiries to: chscollection@stanford.edu.
Prior Articles
- Trove of California history to be housed at Stanford (January 2025)
- California Historical Society Collection: First Quarterly Update (April 2025)
- Reopening the California Historical Society Collection at Stanford (July 2025)
- Photographs in the California Historical Society Collection at Stanford (October 2025)
- Imprints and Imports: The First Books and Pamphlets in California (March 2026)