Oliver North | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jacob Soifer 1904 Ukraine |
| Died | 1976 San Juan, Puerto Rico |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | Bachelor of Arts, University of Pennsylvania |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Period | 1930s-1970s |
| Subject | politics, government, revolution, workers, labor, Communism |
| Notable works | No Men are Strangers |
| Spouse | Helen Oken (1912–) Augusta Strong |
| Children | 1 son, 2 daughters, 3 step-daughters |
Joseph North (journalist) (b. 1904–1976) was an American writer and journalist who was the author of Cuba: Hope of a Hemisphere, Robert Minor, Artist and Crusader, New Masses, and No Men are Strangers.[1]
Early life
editJacob Soifer was born in 1904 in Ukraine to Jessie Soifer and Balia Yasnitz. He later changed his name to Joseph North.[2]
His parents emigrated from the Ukraine to the United States when North was nine-months old and lived in Chester, Pennsylvania where North grew up.[1][2]
North married Helen Oken in 1931, whose family had immigrated from Russia. She grew up in New York. Her two sisters and her father, Morris Oken, were "highly involved in labor and socialist organizations".[2]
Helen Oken married Joseph North in 1931.[2]
Education
editNorth earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.[1][2]
Early career
editHe began his career as a journalist at The Chester Times.[1]
Communist Party (1920s-1976)
editIn the late 1920s, North became a member of the Communist Party. From the 1960s until his death he was a member of the American central committee of the Party.[1] In his 2019 book Transaction Man: the rise of the deal and the decline of the American dream, Nicholas Lemann wrote that in the 1930s the United States was in a "state of near chaos" following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 with the Great Depression underway. Lemann said that "[o]utside of Washington", where President President Franklin D. Roosevelt was introducing his New Deal, "communism and fascism had more serious support than they have had before or since."[3]
1950s
editDuring the McCarthy inquiries into Communist activities he invoked "Constitutional protections against self-incrimination."[1]
Journalism
editHe co-founded of the Communist weekly, New Masses in 1935?[2] and was editor of Labor Unity.[1] The North's social circle included Joseph Freeman, Harry Freeman, Joseph's brother, Harry's wife Vera Schaap (wife of Al Schaap, a Young Communist League founder), Sender Garlin, Abe Magill, James S. Allen, Anna Rochester, Grace Hutchins, Nadya Pavlov, and Kenneth Durant.[4]
He worked for The Daily World and its predecessor The Daily Worker, for 45 years.[1] In the year before he died, North was the The Daily World's Moscow correspondent.[1]
In the late 1930s, North worked as a foreign correspondent in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) for the New Masses. His wife Helen, accompanied him and "worked in the medical service during those years."[2] North sided with the Loyalist army.[1] Historian [[Antony Beevor said the war was described by Republican's as a struggle between tyranny and freedom, and by Nationalists as communist "red hordes" versus "Christian civilisation".[5]: Chapter 21
When they returned to the United States, they settled in Manhattan where their three children Daniel, Susan, and Nora, were born.[2]
Towards the end of World War II, he was with the American army when they liberated Germany's concentration camps.[1]
In 1949, North was listed as a contributing editor to Masses & Mainstream along with Milton Blau, Richard O. Boyer, W. E. B. Du Bois, Arnaud D'Usseau, Philip Evergood, Howard Fast, Ben Field, Frederick V. Field, Sidney Finkelstein, Joseph Foster, Barbara Giles, Shirley Graham, William Gropper, Robert Gwathmey, Milton Howard, Charles Humboldt, V. J. Jerome, John Howard Lawson, Meridel le Sueur, A. B. Magil, Paul Robeson, Sidor Schneider, Howard Selsam, John Stuart, and Theodore Ward.[6]
In 1961, he accompanied Castro's forces during the Bay of Pigs invasion.[1]
In 1972, he "filed dispatches on the bombing of the North Vietnamese capital on Christmas.[1]
North founded the United States Chapter of the International Organization of Journalists.[1]
Books and essays
editHe wrote Robert Minor, Artist and Crusader (1956),[7] No Men are Strangers (1958),[8][1] Cuba: Hope of a Hemisphere (1961), and he was the editor of New Masses: an anthology of the Rebel Thirties.
In his short 1949 book, Verdict against freedom: your stake in the communist trial, he discussed the Communist Party of the United States of America, African Americans, and suffrage.[9] In the 1956 biography of Robert Minor (1884-[7] In his short 1959 book, Cuba's revolution : I saw the people's victory (1959)[10] he wrote about the revolution, politics and government from 1933 to 1959.[10]
His his 1961 book Cuba: Hope of a Hemisphere, he wrote about Cuban history, politics and government from 1926 to 2016 and Fidel Castro.[11]
In his 1931? pamphlet for the International Labor Defense, the "legal arm of the Communist Party"[12] Lynching Negro children in southern courts, he discussed the case of the Scottsboro Boys, which nine African American teenagers, aged 13 to 20, were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in 1931.[13] A lynch mob gathered at the jail in Scottsboro, Alabama demanding the youths be surrendered to them.[14]: 16–17 Their case was appealed by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). PBS said that International Labor Defense lawyers had visited the youth in jail in June 1931 Kilby, Alabama to "secure control of their defense."[12]
His 1944 essay Labor faces '44's challenge, discussed WWII, labor and the United States.[15]
His 1942 essay Washington and Lincoln The American tradition, discussed sermons by George Washington (1732–1799) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).[16]
In the 1970 book Gus Hall : the man and the message that he co-authored, he wrote about Hall and Communism.[17]
In his 1975 Washington State University thesis/dissertation Identification of students with learning handicaps, he wrote about learning disabilities and slow learning children.[18]
His 1976 New Outlook pamphlet What everyone should know about the USSR : an eyewitness report of a three-year visit, Soviet Union -- Politics and government -- 1953-1985.[19]
No Men are Strangers
editIn his 1958 autobiography, No Men are Strangers, he described his early life and his many years as a journalist, which included his years as war correspondent and his meetings with people such as Ernest Hemingway, Lincoln Steffens—whose own work as journalist and muckraker, North admired, as well as Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, John Spivak and Malcolm Cowley.[1]
Personal life
editNorth and his wife, Augusta, had a son , two daughters, and three step-daughters.[1] He died of leukemia in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1976.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Joseph North dies: Communist editor". The New York Times. Obituary. December 22, 1976.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "North (Joseph and Helen Oken) Family Papers". Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. New York. June 26, 2018. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
- ^ Nicholas Lemann (2019). Transaction Man: the rise of the deal and the decline of the American dream. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 306. ISBN 9780374277888. OCLC 1082560305.
- ^ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 217 (background), 219 (Daily Worker), 224 (foreign news), 231–2 (Chambers' wife), 232 (petition), 241–242 (succession, James S. Allen, TASS), 243 (Lovestoneite). LCCN 52005149.
- ^ Beevor, Antony (2006) [1982]. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84832-1.
- ^ sillen, Samuel, ed. (July 27, 1949). "Table of contents" (PDF). Masses and Mainstream. Vol. 2. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
{{cite magazine}}: Text "number 7" ignored (help) - ^ a b North, Joseph (1956). Robert Minor : artist and crusader : an informal biography. New York: New Century Publishers. OCLC 632396576.
- ^ North, Joseph (1958). No Men are Strangers. New York: International Publishing Service. p. 255. ASIN 0717804623. ISBN 9780717804627. OCLC 765819.
{{cite book}}: Check|asin=value (help) - ^ North, Joseph (1949). Verdict against freedom: your stake in the communist trial. New York: International Publishing Service. p. 23. OCLC 11625304.
- ^ a b North, Joseph (1959). Cuba's revolution : I saw the people's victory. New York: New Century Publishers. p. 23. OCLC 1616990.
- ^ North, Joseph (1961). Cuba: Hope of a Hemisphere. New York: New Century Publishers. OCLC 42731848.
- ^ a b "Scottsboro: An American Tragedy Transcript". PBS. Archived from the original on January 28, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
- ^ North, Joseph (1931). Lynching Negro children in southern courts: (the Scottsboro case). New York: International Labor Defense. p. 15. OCLC 9054711.
- ^ Aretha, David (2008). The Trial of the Scottsboro Boys (The Civil Rights Movement). Greensboro, North Carolina: Morgan Reynolds Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59935-058-5.
- ^ North, Joseph (1944). Labor faces '44's challenge. New York: Workers Library Publishers. p. 12. OCLC 37227814.
- ^ North, Joseph (1942). Washington and Lincoln The American tradition. New York: Workers Library Publishers. p. 14. OCLC 1085295750.
- ^ North, Joseph; Jackson, James; Meyers, George; Hall, Gus (1942). Gus Hall : the man and the message. New York: New Outlook Publishers. p. 63. OCLC 731667175.
- ^ North, Joseph (1975). Identification of students with learning handicaps (Thesis). Pullman, Washington: Washington State University. p. 110. OCLC 3790159.
- ^ North, Joseph (1942). What everyone should know about the USSR : an eyewitness report of a three-year visit. New York: New Outlook Publishers. ISBN 0878981217. OCLC 3353578.
- ^ North, Joseph (1952). Behind the Florida Bombings : White Supremacy in Florida. Pamphlets. New York: New Century Publishers. OCLC 79754153.
- ^ a b North, Joseph (1952). New York: New Century Publishers.
{{cite book}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) Cite error: The named reference "North_1952" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ North, Joseph (1972). New masses : anthology of the rebel thirties. Seven Seas Books. Berlin: Seven Seas Publishers. p. 352. OCLC 471729276.
- ^ North, Joseph; Hemingway, Ernest (1939). Men in the ranks. The story of 12 Americans in Spain. New York: Friends of the Abraham Lincoln brigade. p. 47. OCLC 943168243. Retrieved September 11, 2019. With a foreword by Ernest Hemingway
- ^ North, Joseph (1980). Men in the ranks. The story of 12 Americans in Spain. The Blodgett Collection of Spanish Civil War pamphlets. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard College Library. p. 47. OCLC 1116109442.