SM Het Licht Ghent

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Belgium

Holding institution:: Amsab – Institute of Social History

Holding institution (official language):: Amsab - Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Postal address:: Bagattenstraat 174, 9000 Gent

Phone number:: +32 9 224 00 79

Web address:: www.amsab.be

Email:: info@amsab.be

Reference number:: AmsabISH-Ghent-017

Title:: SM Het Licht Ghent

Title (official language):: SM Het Licht Gent

Creator/accumulator:: SM Het Licht

Date(s):: 1944/1986

Extent:: 240 boxes

Scope and content:: In this fonds we mainly point out the correspondence with Leopold Flam, i.a. concerning the publication of books. See nos. 141.5 (dated 1954-1955) and 145.3 (1956-1957). Furthermore we also note the documentation folder titled “politics: Catholicism, class struggle, Palestine, Jews; health care: cancer” (see no. 237.1; dated 1936-1938). This folder contains press clippings and excerpts from periodicals concerning Palestine and the Jewish population in general, but also several issues of the periodical Avenir Juif (August 1937).

Administrative/biographical history:: The cooperative Het Licht was founded in 1908 by the Ghent federation of the Belgian Labour Party. Before the creation of SM Het Licht, similar attempts had already been tried – cfr. SM Volksdrukkerij. In addition to the daily Vooruit, SM Het Licht also published the weekly Koekoek, De Radiobode and (with SV Ontwikkeling) ABC. The society expanded after the First World War, but stagnation set in by the end of the inter-bellum period. At the beginning of the Second World War, the editorial staff fled. Already in May 1940, a collaborationist, ‘stolen’ Vooruit appeared. In 1941 Verwalter Gaston De Vos took over management of the society. The first new Vooruit was published in September 1944, a few days after the Liberation. SM Het Licht expanded rapidly in the 1950s, but from the early 1970s the company was once again struggling to make a profit, necessitating the financial intervention of the socialist party on more than one occasion. By 1978 its former legal structure was abandoned; the newspaper De Morgen was created out of the fusion of the social-democratic newspapers Vooruit and Volksgazet (a daily from the Antwerp region). The crisis continued, however, and the company remained in financial difficulties, eventually resulting in the bankruptcy of SM Het Licht in January 1986. The editorial headquarters annex printing offices in Ghent, with the iconic façade designed by Brunfaut, was listed as a monument. (R. de Coninck, Overzichtslijst van het archief van SM Het Licht., AMSAB Werkinstrumenten 8, Gent, AMSAB-ISG, 1997.)

Access points: locations:: Ghent

Access points: persons/families:: Flam, Leopold

Subject terms:: Health and medical matters; Jewish press; Labour unions; Mandatory Palestine; Newspaper clippings; Publishing

Finding aids:: R. de Coninck, Overzichtslijst van het archief van SM Het Licht., AMSAB Werkinstrumenten 8, Gent, AMSAB-ISG, 1997.

Yerusha Network member:: State Archives of Belgium

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