Date of Original
1969/1972

Subject
Protest posters

Location
United States, 39.76, -98.5

Medium
posters

Type
Text

Description
Before the era of the personal computer and the Internet, social protest movements sought a creative low-cost medium for carrying their messages to the public. On college campuses, silk screen printing was done painstakingly by hand, often on the back of long fan-folding computer printouts. The effort proved worthwhile, for it provided an effective low-cost means of replicating striking color artwork in large format in hundreds of copies. Many posters called for unity and peace. Others questioned the very basis of the Vietnam War, the draft, and political surveillance by the Nixon administration. Of note, one poster memorialized the four students who were killed by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970. The Art of Protest Collection consists of twenty-six digitized silk screen posters documenting campus social protest movements in California during the 1960s and 1970s. Mostly the work of students at the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Santa Cruz, the posters depict a wide range of opposition to the Vietnam war, the military draft, racism, state repression, and environmental pollution.The original collection is maintained by the San Jose Peace and Justice Center.

Metadata URL
https://digitalcollections.sjsu.edu/art-protest

Language
eng

Contributing Institution
San Jose State University. Library. Special Collections & Archives

Rights