Scope and arrangement
The Étienne and Ghislaine Charlier Collection comprises letters, political treatises and printed matter that are useful for a study of the Haitian left in Haiti and abroad. There is very little in the way of the biographical or personal, especially for Étienne, and the majority of the collection's letters are incoming to Rey Charlier. Despite this, the collection still offers a sense of the Charliers' political thinking and development, particularly through four documents written by Étienne Charlier. These are his classic, "Aperçu sur la formation historique de la nation haïtienne," the 1947 one year anniversary report of the Parti Socialiste Populaire, "Fascisme et Nazisme ou Socialisme Scientifique," and a copy of the "Comité Central du Parti Communiste Haïtien's Analyse Schematique, 1932-1934," co-written with Jacques Roumain.
Rey Charlier's letters offer a glimpse into both her creative and political activities. The correspondents read like a who's who of the crème of Haiti's political opposition and include the doyen of Haitian noirisme, Jean Price-Mars. These letters, although personal to a great degree, do offer some socio-political critique. Materials such as the statement of the Support Committee for the Haitian People reveal Rey Chalier's continuing activism in exile. The committee was set up to give concrete form to the solidarity between various organizations working in the Haitian diaspora.