Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.

Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials

Documents

Factory Farms Factory Farms
Call Number: V 718Format: VHSProducers: Estuary PressCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
Factory Farms tells the unique story of California agriculture, a highly capitalized, sophisticated industry with substandard wage rates that keeps its workers in poverty and destitution. The film documents 1959 labor conditions for farm workers and reviews the history of union organizing in California agriculture.
The Harvesters The Harvesters
Call Number: V 719Format: VHSProducers: Estuary PressCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
The Harvesters documents late 1950's farm labor conditions in California's fields when 14- to 16-hour days paid workers at eighty-five cents to a dollar per hour. The film photographs people working many different crops. It also exposes how the bracero program imported Mexican nationals to work at wages lower than the sub-minimum rates available to American workers. The film was used by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) and the United Packinghouse Workers Union as an organizing film.