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Welcome
To CESAALA
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 elcome
to the web site for the Charles E. Stevens American Atheist
Library and Archives.
The library is an independent, nonprofit facility which
specializes in the preservation of Atheist, Freethought,
Rationalist, Secularist, Skeptic, Humanist, Agnostic and Deist
materials. Our holdings constitute the nation’s largest
private gathering of books, booklets, pamphlets, periodicals,
ephemera and other records pertinent to these topics. We also
have an extensive collection of materials on philosophy,
science, the history of religion as well as state-church
separation and First Amendment rights.
The CESAALA facility is hosted by American Atheists, a
nationwide movement that for over four decades has defended
civil rights for nonbelievers; labored for the total
separation of government and organized religion; and addressed
First Amendment public policy issues.
The Library and Archives currently house nearly 25,000 books,
and over 500,000 pamphlets, booklets, periodicals, letters,
photographs and other material relevant to our mission. We
have an extensive collection of newsletters and other
documents representing the history and activities of hundreds
of Atheist-Freethought organizations at the local, regional
and national level. We also maintain and house the Oral
History Project of American Atheists, a unique audio-video
collection of personal testimonies from individual
nonbelievers.
Among the authors represented in the CESAALA are Francis
Ellingwood Abbot (Editor, 1836-1897); D.G.M. Bennett (1818
–n 1882), American editor and publisher; George W. Foote
(1850-1915), Atheist publisher; and Emmanuel Haldeman-Julius
(1889-1951), prolific publisher and writer. We have one of the
most extensive archives of Haldemn-Julius’s Little Blue
Books, magazines, and other materials published by his Girard,
Kansas company.
In addition, CESAALA maintains complete or extensive
collections of renowned Atheist, Freethought and related
publications – most of them extinct – including The
Atheist, Free Society, The Truthseeker, Temple of Reason, and
The National Reformer.
The Library also serves as an archive for records,
publications, pamphlets, audio-visual materials and other
pertinent information related to American Atheists and its
founder, Madalyn Murray O’Hair and her family.
For nearly five decades, Madalyn O’Hair collected books,
pamphlets, letters and related materials on the history of
Atheism and Freethought. She knew the importance of preserving
these works. In 1965, Charles E. Stevens, an early supporter
of Ms. O’Hair’s legal battle to end mandatory prayer and
Bible verse reading in public schools, made a donation to
establish on a permanent basis the library that would
eventually bear his name.
Please explore – and enjoy – our web site. Check back for
new features, too, including featured topics, and much, much
more. |
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