Viven Kellems was an inventor, businesswoman, political candidate, philanthropist, and most notably, an activist. Her fight with the Internal Revenue Service over tax reform, specifically the withholding tax introduced in the 1940s, was a journey that produced her book, Toil, Taxes, and Trouble, which is being translated into Italian and expected to be published in 2027.

Why translate a 1952 book about Kellem’s protest of the federal income tax withholding system? Paolo Luca Bernardini, Professor of Early Modern and Modern History at Insubria University in Como-Varese, Italy, believes that her work, and her energy, are much needed in today’s European environment where classical-liberal and libertarian ideas are struggling to be heard.

Back in the early 90s, Italy’s Radical Party attempted to call up a national referendum on this very issue, but it failed. During that time, Kellems’ arguments were used in the debate, which still resonate in today’s political environment, leading Bernardini to translate the full text into Italian. To, in his words, “write a decent introduction, without turning to Wikipedia or AI, but working with the very sources,” his search led him to the archival documents and unpublished papers in Archives & Special Collections.

The collection, which includes more than one hundred boxes, donated by Viven’s nephew Vangelder Kellems in 1992 and funded for digitization by Suzy Kellems Dominik, is a glimpse into the life of this prominent Connecticut figure. Bernardini described the collection as “a treasure for historians,” with so much to discover. Not just for political thought, which is his specialty, but for economic and political history as well.

Bernardini’s research at UConn was partially funded by the Rose and Sigmund Strochlitz Fellowship, and as part of that program he will be giving a presentation on his research this Thursday, October 29th from 12-1 in the Dodd Center for Human Rights Public Lounge, and a blog post will be published at a later date.