{"id":2308,"date":"2026-10-28T20:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T00:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/?p=2308"},"modified":"2026-10-29T09:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T13:38:04","slug":"viven-kellems-tax-rebellion-making-its-way-to-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/viven-kellems-tax-rebellion-making-its-way-to-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Viven Kellems\u2019 Tax Rebellion &#8211; 74 Years and 4,200 Miles Later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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, <em>Toil, Taxes, and Trouble, <\/em>which is being translated into Italian and expected to be published in 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/files\/viven-kellems.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1400\" height=\"1760\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/files\/viven-kellems.jpg\" alt=\"black and white portrait of Viven Kellems. Courtesy of Archives &amp; Special Collections, UConn Library\" class=\"wp-image-2309\" style=\"width:270px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Why translate a 1952 book about Kellem\u2019s 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\u2019s European environment where classical-liberal and libertarian ideas are struggling to be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in the early 90s, Italy\u2019s Radical Party attempted to call up a national referendum on this very issue, but it failed. During that time, Kellems\u2019 arguments were used in the debate, which still resonate in today\u2019s political environment, leading Bernardini to translate the full text into Italian. To, in his words, \u201cwrite a decent introduction, without turning to Wikipedia or AI, but working with the very sources,\u201d his search led him to the archival documents and unpublished papers in Archives &amp; Special Collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The collection, which includes more than one hundred boxes, donated by Viven\u2019s 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 \u201ca treasure for historians,\u201d with so much to discover. Not just for political thought, which is his specialty, but for economic and political history as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bernardini\u2019s 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 <strong>Thursday, October 29th from 12-1 <\/strong>in the Dodd Center for Human Rights Public Lounge, and a blog post will be published at a later date.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/viven-kellems-tax-rebellion-making-its-way-to-italy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions\/2313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}