List of members of the League of American Writers explained
The League of American Writers was a so-called "mass organization" initiated by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935 and terminated in January 1943. A small and elite organization, the League included professional novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics. Despite the prominent role of the CPUSA in the establishment and control of the League, one should not make the assumption that any particular individual on this list was a "Communist," however. The members of the League of American Writers ranged from active and open Communist Party members to "fellow travelers" who consciously followed the party's political line without being subject to the formal discipline of party membership to individuals who merely sympathized with one or another broad policy objective being touted by the League, such as stopping the spread of fascism or supporting the cause of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Most members belonged to the latter group.
The office of the League of American Writers was burglarized shortly before the National Council voted to terminate the organization in January 1943 and its membership list was taken.[1] This page is a list of members of the League of American Writers compiled and published by Franklin Folsom, Executive Secretary for five of the seven years of the League's existence. Folsom worked from published League Bulletins, organizational minutes, partial membership lists obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as cross-checked to a similar list compiled by Tom Wolfe for his doctoral dissertation. This list follows that published as Appendix A of Folsom's 1994 memoir.[2]
Membership list
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
M
O
P
R
S
T
U
See also
Notes and References
- Book: Folsom
, Franklin
. Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937-1942. University Press of Colorado. 265. 1994. 9780870813320. 28 April 2020.
- The published original is entitled "Members of the League of American Writers" and appears on pages 265-331 of Folsom's memoir, Days of Anger, Days of Hope.
- Born Abel Meeropol.
- Born Sol Auerbach.
- Wrote under the pseudonym Sylvester Davis.
- Pseudonym of Eleanor Gottheil Kubie.
- Pseudonym of Jeremiah Digges.
- Pseudonym of Paul Massing.
- Born William Blech.
- Born Louis Boudinoff.
- Used Pseudonym Ben Field.
- Pseudonym of Olive Tilford Dagan.
- Born Abraham Stein.
- Born Eugene Holmes.
- Born Leo Jacob.
- Born Edward Elliot.
- Pseudonym of Gerald L.C. Copley.
- Pseudonym of John Wesley.
- Born Louis C. Fraina.
- Wrote under the pseudonym Robert Forsythe.
- Wrote under the pseudonyms Bennett Barley, M.E. Chaber, Richard Foster, Christopher Monig, and Clay Richards.
- Pseudonym of Obed Brooks.
- Born Samuel Goldstein. Pseudonym Harry Reliis.
- Born Finis King.
- Also used pseudonym Jonathan Titulescu Fogarty.
- Also used pen names E.V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.
- Born Isidor Feinstein.
- Pseudonym of Moe Bragin.
- Used pseudonym Russell Gray.
- Full name June Hildegarde Flanner Monhoff.
- Executive Secretary of League of American Writers from 1937-1943. Wrote under pseudonyms Benjamin Brewster, Michael Gorham, Lyman Hopkins, Troy Nesbit, Chase Elwell, Horatio D. Jones, Philip Stander.
- President of League of American Writers, 1935-1936. American delegate to International Writers Congress, Paris, 1936.
- Wrote under pseudonym Charles Henry Newman.
- Born Irving Granich.
- Born Charles Francis Phillips; died Charles Shipman.
- Pseudonym of Ruth Jones.
- Wrote under pseudonym Eugene Clay.
- Web site: Alice Riggs Hunt fonds. Hunt, Alice Riggs. University of Waterloo Library. 13 April 2016.
- Born Georg Henri Anton Ivens.
- Born Israel Shapiro.
- Book: Rideout, Walter . The Radical Novel in the United States . Harvard University Press . 1956 . Cambridge, MA . 241 . English.
