Nash is best remembered for the key role he played in first obtaining and then integrating the archives of the Communist Party USA into Tamiment Library's holdings, in addition to other acquisition projects.
[2] This purge, similar in form to policies implemented in other places in the United States presented their subjects with an irresolvable conflict: If one refused to sign a "loyalty oath" indicating that the signer had never been a communist, the individual was fired and blacklisted.
[4] Nash began work on a PhD in labor history, beginning a study of the political behavior of coal miners and steel workers during the Progressive Era.
[5] Nash was discouraged both by the magnitude of the project he visualized and the job market for labor historians, however, so he took steps towards becoming a professional archivist, earning a Master of Library Science degree in 1974.
[4] More years would pass before his dissertation subject, an attempt to demonstrate the emergence of American workers in heavy industry "into something resembling a class-conscious proletariat," would find print.
[5] With his scholarly writing occupying his free time, Nash began his career as an archival specialist at the New York Public Library in 1974, a position in which he remained for six years.
[1] Unable to find a position as a labor historian or archivist, Nash spent the next two decades of his career at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, a facility specializing in collections dealing with the history of business and technology.
[7] In March 2007 Nash was instrumental in arranging the transfer of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies (RCMS), the archive and library of the Communist Party USA, to NYU.