The Rare Book and Special Collections Division holds several collections relating to American and international Anarchist and radical movements in the form of pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, posters, cartoons, sheet music, and prints relating primarily to American communism, socialism, and anarchism from 1870 through 1985, with the bulk of the material published between 1930 and 1949.

The largest collection relating to Anarchism and radical movements is the Paul Avrich Collection. In 1986 the prominent historian of anarchism Paul Avrich donated to the Library his extensive collection of books, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, and memorabilia relating to the movement. The collection is particularly rich in American and European publications issued after 1900, with a full range of important anarchist writers represented, such as Errico Malatesta, Mikhail Bakunin, Rudolf Rocker, Prince Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, and Emma Goldman. The Goldman material is a notable example of how the Avrich Collection deepens the Library's resources in this area. Though the Library owns most of Emma Goldman's major works, the Avrich Collection contains ephemeral pamphlets such as Love among the Free and Trotsky Protests Too Much, Japanese and French translations of her autobiography, and later revisions of such important books as the 1911 and 1917 editions of Anarchism and Other Essays, as well as correspondence from Goldman to friends after her 1919 deportation from the United States.

Other important collections include the House Un-American Activities Committee Pamphlet Collection, the Radical Pamphlet Collection, and the M & S Collection, each with over 4,000 items, mainly pamphlets and other ephemera, all of which focus in particular upon radical movements in the United States from about 1890 to about 1985.