Swiss Social Archives
Swiss Social Archives in Zurich is a historical archive, an academic library, a collection of documents, and a research center focused on social issues and social movements. It is recognized as Switzerland’s leading research facility in this field.
The Archives were founded in 1906 by Paul Pflüger, a social reformer, politician, and pastor from Zurich. It began as the Centre for Switzerland’s Social Literature to document social questions. Early visitors included Len in and Trotsky. During the interwar period antifascist refugees used the reading room, and in the 1940s the institution took its present name.
In 1974 the Swiss Confederation recognized the Archives as a research facility, and in 1984 it moved to its current home at the Sonnenhof in Zurich. The SSA is run by an independent association with funding from the Swiss Confederation, the Canton of Zurich, the City of Zurich, and other sources. It employs about 20 historians, archivists, and librarians, and the director is Christian Koller.
The Archives also play a role in public education, organizing exhibitions, publishing essay collections on Swiss social history, and hosting lectures and information sessions. They work with Swiss schools, other archives and libraries, and similar institutions abroad. The SSA is a founding member of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI) and runs the Ellen Rifkin Hill Foundation, an endowment fund.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:07 (CET).