[2] The Social Archives run their own research endowment fund, the Ellen Rifkin Hill Foundation.

They have convened several exhibitions, published essay collections on Swiss social history and conduct lecture series, presentations and information sessions.

[4][5][6] The SSA are a founding member of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI).

[13] During the interwar period, antifascist refugees from Italy and Germany frequently visited the reading room, and in the 1940s the archives assumed their present name.

The reading room became a popular meeting place for Eastern European refugees from the Cold War.