This small collection primarily consists of correspondence between Beni and Franklin Rosemont regarding the collecting of IWW and Surrealist publications. Beni was initially interested in receiving more of the Rosemonts' publications in Arsenal. As their correspondence became more robust, both men collaborated on a search for materials relating to various figures in the history of IWW publications. In the 2000s, their correspondence moved to e-mails that include a network of activists, librarians, and scholars invested in the discovery and preservation of labor history materials. After Franklin Rosemont's death in 2007, Beni continued to collaborate with the curator of the Labadie Collection to acquire rare materials related to the Rosemonts' own activities.
Franklin Rosemont and Penelope Rosemont were Surrealist artists, poets, and activists. They were active members of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Students for a Democratic Society. Inspired by their encounters with the Paris Surrealists in the 1960s, they made it their mission to advance the Surrealist movement in the United States. The pair hosted exhibitions for Surrealist art and began publishing Arsenal, a Surrealist journal. In the 1980s, they assumed management of Charles H. Kerr Publishing, the nation's oldest labor press. Throughout their long careers, the Rosemonts also contributed their own scholarship, poetry, and art to the American Surrealist movement. For a more complete biography of the Rosemonts, see the Guide to the Franklin and Penelope Rosemont Papers at the University of Michigan Special Collections Research Center.
Known to most only by his nickname, Beni is a private collector with an interest in anarchism, surrealism, situationism, ultraleftism, and other associated international movements. He has spent years collecting materials related to these movements, donating some to institutions like the University of Michigan library and keeping others for his private collection, which he refers to as the "Beni Memorial Library." In the 1970s, Beni initiated what would become a decades-long correspondence with the Rosemonts regarding the history and collecting of various labor and Surrealist publications.
