The Ted Sahl Social Justice Collection represents thirty years of the work of local photojournalist Theodore (Ted) Sahl documenting social, political, and cultural events in the Bay Area.

Theodore Sahl was an award winning photographer in San José, California. Sahl spent 30 years as a photojournalist, documenting social and political events in the Bay Area. Born May 5, 1927 to a poor Jewish family in Roxbury, an Irish suburb near Boston, he faced discrimination on a daily basis living in the tenements of South Boston. He served in the U.S. Navy (1947) and was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina where he first witnessed separate facilities and drinking fountains for African Americans. These early experiences formed his views on social justice and civil rights. He spent his primary career working as a welder in California, and in the 1970s he became an active photojournalist in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

53 boxes (33.93 linear feet)

Copyright has been assigned to the San José State University Library Special Collections & Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the SJSU Special Collections & Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader. Copyright restrictions also apply to digital reproductions of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.

The collection is open for research.