“We are the librarians, pages, and service workers in the New York Public Library system who are members of the Communist party and of the Young Communist League,” declares the first page of the first issue of The Class Mark from May 1935 under the bold headline “Who Are The Reds?” The publication goes on, “[wealthy publisher] William Randolph Hearst and others may tempt you to believe that we are ‘outside agitators’ sent to disturb you by ‘un-American’ agencies. Exactly the reverse is the
case … We are your colleagues and fellow-workers and stand behind every organized effort to carry forward our common aim: the maintenance and improvement of our living, working, and professional standards.” As that opening makes clear, The Class Mark was a Communist paper dedicated to organizing workers to fight for better working conditions in the New York Public Library. The paper was published from 1935 to 1939, at a time when the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the need for a popular front against
fascism increased the popularity and mainstream acceptance of Communism.
The Class Mark was a Communist shop paper — a Communist paper published by and for the workers at particular job sites. Shop papers were meant to speak directly to the needs of workers, and to show them how Communist principles and solidarity could benefit them. As the paper declared in January 1936, “We wish to make clear the inter-related political significance of local, national, and international issues.”
“Class mark” featured on the title page of each newspaper.
The paper addressed New York Public Library workers first of all with its name and design: a “class mark” is the set of letters and/or numbers that designate the subject of a book to make it searchable. The header of The Class Mark showed an NYPL call slip that readers filled out to request books; the title, volume, number, and date of the paper are filled in instead of book details, and in the place where the call number or class mark would go, there is a hammer and sickle. One cartoon in the paper showed the library’s iconic marble lions sitting up to read an issue of The Class Mark.
“Well, Leo,” one says to the other, “It looks as if they’re beginning to wake up inside.”
The Class Mark also reiterated over and over in its pages that it was written and published not by “‘alien agitators’ dreaming of pointless destruction” but by “fellow employees.” The paper’s makers demonstrated their bona fides by speaking directly to issues facing NYPL workers. Their first issue called for “tenure, pensions, and higher ‘salaries,” and argued “against the vicious system of spying to which the service workers, clerical help, pages, and bindery workers are subjected.”
concerns of library pages, who fetched and returned books to shelves. The pages were often underage and were at the bottom of the library hierarchy. NYPL class slip featured on the title page of each edition of The Class Mark. Taken from a scan of Volume 1, Number 7 of the newspaper, published November 1935.
One article, titled “Cheese It, the Cops!,” named specific “rats” and “sneaks” in middle management who surveilled and punished staff on technicalities. The paper also criticized poor ventilation
contributing to outbreaks of tuberculosis. Many of these complaints were chronicled in The Class Mark’s regular feature “The Red Page: A Page for Pages,” which spoke specifically to the
“Most of us began when we were fourteen years old,” one anonymous page wrote. “We all had ambitions for our future, either to graduate college into some profession or to get some job with a chance of advancement. But it became increasingly difficult to get anything.”
a minimum wage for pages, an end to payless furloughs without cause, and a consideration of workers, not just books, when evaluating ventilation. In 1936, the SA moved to end its age requirement, and the LWU voted to disband as its members joined the SA en masse.
The Class Mark also regularly discussed the complicated union politics of the NYPL. The system had two competing staff organizations in the 1930s. The first, the Staff Association (SA), was formed in 1917; it fought for raises and to include staff in representation at City Council
meetings. The second was the Library Workers Union (LWU). The SA excluded most pages from its ranks because of their age. The LWU as a result was largely made up of younger workers, who tended to be more radical than their elders. The LWU’s list of demands included
The Class Mark was being published as these important conflicts and changes developed. The paper felt the SA was insufficiently militant and insufficiently prounion. But, in line with the growing movement for a popular front, it also called for unity. “We support the list of demands of the Library Workers
Union,” it stated in its first issue. And it continued, “We support every effort of sincere members of the Staff Association to convert that body into an organization that can win the immediate needs of librarians.” In its ninth issue, in January 1936, The Class Mark praised a “militant group” in the SA for its “fighting spirit” and for continuing a discussion group despite administration opposition.
Maud Malone, an early suffragette and the first president of the Library Employees Union, which evolved from the SA, seen in “The Salt Lake Tribune” Sunday Morning May 4, 1913. From the Library of Congress Chronicling America Collection.
Like other shop papers, The Class Mark informed workers about the principles of Communism and encouraged enrollment in the Communist International Party. It also reported on, and called for contributions to, left and civil rights causes, such as the defense of the Scottsboro Boys— Black male teenagers accused of raping a white woman in Tennessee in 1931, all of whom were eventually pardoned in 2013. In terms of national policies, it advocated “for unemploymentinsurance, against the impending war, and against the approach of fascism.”
The Class Mark emphasized that Communism was in line with American identity and principles in articles like “Mark Twain Is One of Us.” The piece highlighted Twain’s critique of wealth in the Gilded Age and concluded that “if [Mark Twain] lived today, he would no doubt be called a ‘Red.’” The paper also critiqued the American upper class broadly. For example, it printed a black and white cartoon showing two portly, wealthy men walking down a hallway together towards the Trustees
Room. “Look glum, J.P.—we’re supposed to be losing money!” one says to the other. To workers demanding salary increases, this was a pointed suggestion that bosses were lying when they said they couldn’t afford to pay workers more. In 1941, the House Un-American Activities Committee issued a report claiming that shop papers—among which it listed The Class Mark—had as their main goals “(1) to propagandize directly for the Soviet Union, and (2) to promote the circulation of the Daily Worker.” The Class Mark certainly did encourage its readers to join the Communist Party or The Young Communist League. But it also advocated for better working conditions and attempted to instill and increase class consciousness of injustices. The right-wing House UnAmerican Activities Committee would undoubtedly have frowned on those goals as well.
The Class Mark closed down in 1938 when the Communist Party decided to stop publication of shop papers, urging Communists to join existing unions rather than
creating alternative organizations. The NYPL workers eventually obtained a collective bargaining agreement in 1968—though young pages and stack workers, who had
made up the core of the paper’s writers and readers in the 30s, were ultimately excluded. The Class Mark currently has no true heirs.
The Class Mark, v. 1, n.1, May 1935. https://digitalcollections. nypl.org/items/d1ddc8b0-c61f-012f-c397-58d385a7bc34?canvasIndex=0 Nora Dolliver and Mia Bruner, “Struggle in the Stacks!: Researching NYPL’s Labor History,” New York Public Library Blog, June 6, 2023. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2023/06/06/strugglestacks-researching-nypls-labor-history Lucie Levin, “Reading Between the Lions: A History of the New York Public Library,” 6sqft, May 23, 2018. https://www.6sqft. com/reading-between-the-lions-a-history-of-the-new-york-publiclibrary/ Princeton University Graphic Arts Collection, “‘The Class Mark’ from NYPL,” May 24, 2021. https://graphicarts.princeton. edu/2021/05/24/the-class-mark-from-nypl/ Progressive Librarians Guild, “PLG’s History,” accessed February 4, 2026. http://www.progressivelibrariansguild.org/content/ history.shtml Wikipedia, “History of the Communist Party USA,” accessed February 4, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_ Communist_Party_USA Wikipedia, “Scottsboro Boys,” accessed February 4, 2026. https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys
This publication is the 14th zine in my Archival Activations series. Archival Activations is a multi-year project for activating my personal collections through publications. Using my personal collections, I feature specific documents and records, and provide historical context. I write some publications and others are by commissioned collaborators. I hope that the featured content in the publications of the series will have some contemporary relevance for readers. Most of the publications are available for free downloading. © July 2026