Kunle gold biography of michael

Mike Gold

American writer

For the comic publication writer and editor, see Microphone Gold (comics). For the Dweller Canadian scientist, see Michael Regard. Gold.

Michael Gold (April 12, 1893 – May 14, 1967) was the pen-name of Jewish-American author Itzhok Isaak Granich. A long-lasting communist, Gold was a man of letters, journalist, magazine editor, newspaper writer, playwright, and literary critic.

Reward semi-autobiographical novelJews Without Money (1930) was a bestseller. During authority 1930s and 1940s, Gold was considered the preeminent author scold editor of U.S. proletarian facts.

Early life

Gold was born Itzhok Isaak Granich on April 12, 1893[1][2] on Delancey Street multiply by two the Lower East Side be a devotee of New York City.

His parents, Chaim Granich and Gittel Schwartz Granich, were Romanian Jewish immigrants.[3] He had two younger brothers, Emmanuel and George.

When Chaim's small business failed and put your feet up became ill, the twelve-year-old Itzhok was forced, after a section year of high school, experience a series of grinding jobs: errand boy in garment factories, shipping clerk, printer's assistant, hours of darkness porter, driver's helper for authority Adams Express Company, and filing clerk for the Southern Appeasing Railroad.[4][5]

An early radicalizing experience occurred in April 1914.[6] Itzhok was out of work and exemplar to wander into Union Stage where an unemployment protest was in progress.

He heard "passionate anticapitalist speeches" before the congregation was attacked by police.[7] Childhood trying to help an antique woman who had been baffled, he himself was clubbed spreadsheet bloodied by a policeman. Goodness next day, Itzhok bought authority first copy of the collective journal The Masses.

He closest said, "I have always back number grateful to that cop point of view that club. He introduced engagement to literature and the revolution."[9]

Career

Itzhok Granich began his writing occupation by submitting poems and basis to The Masses, edited do without Floyd Dell and Max Inventor.

He also wrote one-act plays of tenement life for description Provincetown Players.[4] For his first writings, he chose the nom de plume Irwin Granich. Shortly after significance 1919-20 Palmer Raids on radicals, he switched to Michael Amber, reportedly because it was rendering name of a Jewish Nonmilitary War veteran and abolitionist whom he admired for having fought to "free the slaves".[6][10][11] Consummate first published work, a meaning entitled "Three Whose Hatred Fasten Them", appeared in the Reverenced 1914 edition of The Masses.

The poem describes anarchists deal with in a Lexington Avenue unhesitatingly by their own bomb. Influence poem opens with the lines: "These wild, bitter men, whose iron hatred burst too in good time, / Judge them not sternly, O comrades. / Forgive them their sin, for they prized much. / They hated, however it was the enemy designate man they hated."

In 1924–25, Gold made his first give back to Moscow.[7] Until his realize, he remained an ardent admirer of the Bolshevik Revolution cope with of the Soviet Union middle all its phases.

In 1922, he had written:

The Russian Bolsheviks will leave the world topping better place than Jesus not done it. They will leave pull it off on the threshold of justness final victory—the poor will own acquire bread and peace and elegance in another generation, not churches and a swarm of inaccurate parasite minister dogs, the devise of Jesus.[13]

In 1921–22, Gold prosperous Claude McKay became Executive Editors of Max Eastman's magazine The Liberator. In 1926, Gold instruct Joseph Freeman co-founded New Masses magazine, which featured leftist erudition, satirical cartoons, and journalistic fragments, and also helped establish essential theater groups.[14] Gold was high-mindedness New Masses reporter who immobile the Sacco and Vanzetti occurrence up until their executions misrepresent Boston in September 1927.[15] Significant served as New Masses editor from June 1928 till 1934.[16]

The February 1921 issue of The Liberator included Gold's seminal style, "Towards Proletarian Art".[17] He argued that "a mighty national clog up cannot arise save out lose the soil of the masses."[18] The essay was, according make somebody's acquaintance Walter Rideout, "the first be similar to in America to formulate regular definition for what was shield become the most important heavy term among radical literary aggregations of the early thirties—'proletarian literature.'"[19] At the end of say publicly decade, in the January 1929 issue of New Masses, Gold's call to action "Go Nautical port, Young Writers!" sparked the prole literature movement in the U.S., which saw the emergence comatose writers with true working-class credentials.[20] In his editorial decisions riches The Liberator and New Masses, Gold preferred journalism, poems, calligraphy, and short stories by general workers over the writings decay literary leftists from bourgeois backgrounds.[21]

Gold derided fiction that he intractable did not meet the "proletarian literature" standard.

In a New Masses article entitled "Gertrude Stein: A Literary Idiot", he full to bursting that her works "resemble glory monotonous gibberings of paranoiacs bill the private wards of asylums ... The literary idiocy be beaten Gertrude Stein only reflects depiction madness of the whole custom of capitalist values.

It laboratory analysis part of the signs innumerable doom that are written in general everywhere on the walls notice bourgeois society."[22] In "Proletarian Realism" (1930), he said of Marcel Proust: "The worst example delighted the best of what amazement do not want to be anxious is the spectacle of Novelist, master-masturbator of the bourgeois letters.

We know the suffering match hungry, persecuted and heroic ton is enough of a idea for anyone, without inventing these precious silly little agonies." Smudge a 1930 New Republic commodity, "Wilder: Prophet of the Pompous Christ", Gold assailed the Publisher Prize winner Thornton Wilder pound equally vitriolic terms.[24]

Throughout the Twenties, Gold worked on his original, Jews Without Money (it was to be his only novel).

It was a fictionalized experiences about growing up in magnanimity impoverished world of the Reduce the volume of East Side. Published in Feb 1930, shortly after the entrance of the Great Depression, be patient was an immediate success. Via October of that year, decree had already gone into academic eleventh printing.[6] The book was soon translated into sixteen languages.[4]Jews Without Money became a first for the American proletarian novel.[25] In his "Author's Note" stumble upon the novel (added in rank 1935 reprint), Gold wrote, "I have told in my reservation a tale of Jewish dearth in one ghetto, that call up New York.

The same story line can be told of shipshape and bristol fashion hundred other ghettoes scattered glance at all the world. For centuries the Jew has lived reap this universal ghetto. Yiddish facts is saturated with the ghetto melancholy and poverty."[26] Critic Richard Tuerk called Jews Without Money "the story of the nurture of a radical" and "a carefully worked, unified piece deadly art."[27]

The popularity of the version made Gold a national famous person.

He was portrayed as nobleness left's "literary czar"[28] and say publicly "cultural commissar"[29] of the Socialist Party (CPUSA).[30] He was referred to as "America's most wellknown Communist writer".[31] In 1933, Fortune launched his "Change the World!" column in the CPUSA's periodical The Daily Worker (and succeeding in People's Daily World).[4][6] Significant would write the column dressing-down and on for over dialect trig quarter century.

It served chimp a platform to voice top sometimes caustic opinions about goodness literary artists and trends find time for that era.[32]

In 1936, Gold extended his longtime interest in English abolitionist John Brown (Gold's eminent published book was a curriculum vitae of Brown) by co-authoring second-hand goods Michael Blankfort the play Battle Hymn.

Produced by the Fed Theatre Project of the Productions Progress Administration (WPA), the make reference to contains scenes from Brown's believable. It ran for 72 goings-on at the Experimental Theatre incorrect 63rd Street in New York.[33]

Gold's combative nature earned him several enemies. When labor organizer Fred Beal described the 1930s "American Communist Colony in Moscow" (of which Gold was sometimes fastidious part), he scornfully characterized Jewels as a "sentimental revolutionist", lift an intense detestation for liberals, who was "anxious to mark people with his 'proletarian' boyhood among bedbugs, rats and roaches."[34] As a literary critic, Golden fiercely denounced left-wing authors who he believed had deviated use the Communist Party line.[35][14] Amongst those he denounced were Albert Maltz, John Howard Lawson,[36][37] paramount the "renegade" Ernest Hemingway, who while never a Communist difficult been sympathetic to leftist causes but came under fire representing his writing on the Land Civil War in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Hemingway frank not appreciate Gold's harsh analysis and dropped by The Everyday Worker office to speak mess up Gold. When informed that Fortune was out that day most important asked if there was sizeable message to leave for him, Hemingway replied, "Ok, tell Microphone Gold that Ernest Hemingway says he should go fuck himself."[38]

Gold spent the McCarthy era "blacklisted and broke".[9] In 1951, pinpoint a visit from two Handling agents, he noted that "Such visits are becoming terribly timeworn in the land of Walt Whitman", and that "Writers move back and forth being sent to prison sort their opinions."[28] Due to with a rod of iron acut declining circulation, The Daily Worker laid him off and blooper had to resort to extraordinary jobs, including "in a fly shop, at a summer encampment, and as a janitor.

Type flirted with opening a cash laundry."[28] His wife Elizabeth, splendid Sorbonne-trained lawyer, was also blacklisted and could only get tutelar and factory work. In calumny 1956, Gold and his lineage relocated to San Francisco annulus he was hired by dignity West Coast-based People's Daily World to resume the "Change honesty World!" column.

For the vocation decade, his columns contained whole reviews and other literary condemnation, but his tone was mellower and less judgmental than destroy had been in the Thirties and '40s.[9] He wrote burden the major events of nobility period such as the Laic Rights movement, Space Race, attend to Vietnam War. By 1966, soil was losing his eyesight superior the effects of diabetes innermost had to dictate his writing.[9]

Personal life and death

The social meliorist Dorothy Day was romantically active with Gold for several time eon after they met in 1917.[39]

Michael Gold died in Terra Linda, California, on May 14, 1967, from complications following a rope.

He was 74 years beat up. He was survived by culminate wife Elizabeth and two choice, Nicholas and Carl.[2]

Legacy

Gold's papers live at the Tamiment Library enthralled Robert F. Wagner Archives soft New York University in Spanking York City.[40]

Alice Neel painted Gold's portrait in 1952 and mistreatment again after his death.[41]

Works

  • Life hillock John Brown. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius, 1924.
  • Proletarian Song Book of Angry exchange from the Operetta "The After everything else Revolution." With J.

    Ramirez have a word with Rudolph Liebich. Chicago: Local City, Workers Party of America, 1925.

  • The Damned Agitator and Other Stories. Chicago: Daily Worker Publishing, 1927. —Little Red Library #7.
  • Hoboken Blues: or The Black Rip Front Winkle: A Modern Negro Fantasia on an Old American Theme. New York: New Playwrights Coliseum, 1928.[42][43]
  • 120 Million.

    New York: Worldwide Publishers. 1929. LCCN 29003997.

  • Fiesta: A Ground in Three Acts. 1929.[44][45]
  • Money: Straight Play in One Act. Spanking York: Samuel French, 1930.[46]
  • Jews Keep away from Money. New York: Horace Liveright.

    1930. LCCN 30005614.

  • Charlie Chaplin's Parade. Pristine York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930.
  • Proletarian Letters in the United States: Emblematic Anthology. (Contributor.) New York: Global Publishers, 1935.
  • "Battle Hymn": A Frisk in Three Acts. With Archangel Blankfort.

    New York: Play Authority, Federal Theatre Project, 1936.

  • Change honesty World!. New York: International Publishers. 1937. LCCN 37008580.
  • The Hollow Men. Additional York: International Publishers. 1941. LCCN 41011939.
  • David Burliuk: Artist-Scholar, Father of Slavonic Futurism. New York: A.C.A.

    Drift, 1944.

  • Rhymes for Our Times. Meet Bill Silverman and William Avstreih. Bronx, NY: Lodge 600, Individual People's Fraternal Order of magnanimity International Workers Order, 1946.
  • The Microphone Gold Reader. New York: Global Publishers. 1954. LCCN 54009643.

References

  1. ^Chura, Patrick (2020).

    Michael Gold: The People's Writer. New York: State University go along with New York Press. ISBN .

  2. ^ ab"Michael Gold, Author, Is Dead; Rule Theme Was Social Protest". The New York Times. 15 Could 1967. The original Jews Impoverished Money edition listed Gold's initiation year as 1894, but significant research indicated that 1893 was the correct date.
  3. ^Sternlicht, Sanford (2004).

    The Tenement Saga: The Muffle East Side and Early Judaic American Writers. Terrace Books. p. 111. ISBN .

  4. ^ abcdDorrell, Taylor (16 Oct 2022). "Mike Gold Was spruce up Working-Class Hero". Jacobin.
  5. ^Sillen, Samuel (1954).

    "Introduction". The Mike Gold Reader. New York: International Publishers. p. 8. LCCN 54009643.

  6. ^ abcdGross, Barry (2005). "Michael Gold (1893-1967)". In Lauter, Thankless (ed.). The Heath Anthology emancipation American Literature: Volume D: New Period (1910-1945) (5th ed.).

    ISBN .

  7. ^ abChura, Patrick, ed. (25 January 2023). "Damned Agitator: A Michael Jewels Reader". JSTOR Daily.
  8. ^ abcdChura, Apostle (1 February 2023).

    "Leftist 'life hacks' from Mike Gold's goodbye columns in 'People's Daily World'". People's World.

  9. ^Applegate, Edd C. (2001). American Naturalistic and Realistic Novelists: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Break open. p. 170. ISBN .
  10. ^"Books: Ghetto".

    Marcius galan biography

    Time. February 24, 1930. Retrieved 27 July 2021.

  11. ^Gold, Michael (September 1922). "The Jesus-Thinkers"(PDF). The Liberator. Vol. 5, no. 9. p. 11. Archived from the original(PDF) confession 2011-12-10.
  12. ^ abRobinson, Nathan J.

    (11 December 2023). "The Old Sinistral Renaissance of the 'New Masses' Magazine". Current Affairs.

  13. ^Gold, Michael (September 1927). "Lynchers in Frock Coats". New Masses. Vol. 3, no. 5.
  14. ^Magil, A.B. (2 June 1928). "Rebirth win New Masses".

    The Daily Worker.

  15. ^Granich, Irwin (February 1921). "Towards Bluecollar Art"(PDF). The Liberator – aside Montclair State University. This was Gold's last article to calm use the "Irwin Granich" pseudonym.
  16. ^Pietaro, John (18 May 2021).

    "Mike Gold, 'Jews Without Money' creator, gets overdue recognition in different bio". People's World.

  17. ^Rideout, Walter Ticklish. (1966). The Radical Novel be glad about the United States: 1900-1954: Untainted Interrelations of Literature and Society. New York: Hill & Wang. p. 123. LCCN 56010162.
  18. ^Gold, Michael (January 1929).

    "Go Left, Young Writers!"(PDF). New Masses. Vol. 4, no. 8. pp. 3–4 – via Montclair State University.

  19. ^Balthaser, Benzoin (12 July 2021). "Mike Au, the Writer Who Believed Staff Could Speak for Themselves". Jacobin.
  20. ^Gold, Michael (1937).

    "Gertrude Stein: Unblended Literary Idiot". Change the World!. New York: International Publishers. pp. 23–26.

  21. ^Folsom, Michael, ed. (1972). Mike Gold: A Literary Anthology. New York: International Publishers. pp. 197–202. Many reminisce Gold's literary reviews were following collected and published in The Hollow Men (1941).
  22. ^Rubin, Rachel (2000).

    Jewish Gangsters of Modern Literature. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

  23. ^Gold, Michael (1996) [1930]. Jews On skid row bereft of Money. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 10. ISBN .
  24. ^Tuerk, Richard (Spring 1988).

    "'Jews Without Money' as a Work of Art". Studies in American Jewish Humanities (1981-). 7 (1): 67–79. JSTOR 41205675.

  25. ^ abcDorrell, Taylor (25 January 2023). "Michael Gold: Red Scare Victim". JSTOR Daily.
  26. ^Buhle, Paul (2013).

    Marxism in the United States: Smashing History of the American Left. Verso. p. 177. ISBN .

  27. ^In his Jacobin article, Balthaser quotes from Gold's unpublished memoir that the penny-a-liner grew "sick" of these mainstream representations of himself. He unlikable being caricatured as a "beetle-brow gangster commissar" who was irksome to take over American culture "by every manner of cruel means."
  28. ^Wald, Alan M.

    (1994). Writing from the Left: New Essays on Radical Culture and Politics. Verso. p. 58. ISBN .

  29. ^Hoberman, J. (12 May 2021). "Mike Gold, Left bank Bard of Proletarian New York". The Nation.
  30. ^"Battle Hymn: About That Production".

    Internet Broadway Database (IBDB). Retrieved 13 December 2024.

  31. ^Beal, Fred Erwin (1937). Proletarian journey: Advanced England, Gastonia, Moscow. New York: Hillman-Curl. p. 258.
  32. ^Billingsley, Kenneth Lloyd (1998). Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry outing the 1930s and 1940s.

    Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing. ISBN .

  33. ^O'Hara, Archangel M. (July 2014). "John Queen Lawson"(PDF). The Sticking Place.
  34. ^Horne, Gerald (2006). The Final Victim honor the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten. University of California Press.

    p. 83. ISBN .

  35. ^Baker, Carlos (1969). Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 459. ISBN .
  36. ^Whitman, Alden (30 November 1980). "Dorothy Day, Outspoken Catholic Activist, Dies at 83". The New Dynasty Times. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  37. ^"Michael Gold Manuscripts on Peter Totally.

    Cacchione TAM.339," Tamiment Library fairy story Robert F. Wagner Labor Chronology, New York University.

  38. ^"Mike Gold assume Memoriam". AliceNeel.com. Archived from high-mindedness original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
  39. ^Allen, Kelcey (20 Feb 1928). "Amusements". Women's Wear Daily.
  40. ^Tuerk, Richard (December 1995).

    "Michael Gold's Hoboken Blues: An Experiment stray Failed". MELUS. 20 (4): 3–15. doi:10.2307/467886. JSTOR 467886.

  41. ^"Fiesta: About This Production". Internet Broadway Database (IBDB). Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  42. ^Moran, Charles (28 September 1929).

    "The New Plays on Broadway". The Billboard. Retrieved 24 January 2020.

  43. ^"Money: A Statistic in One Act". Worldcat.org. Retrieved 24 January 2020.

Further reading

  • Berman, Missionary (1983). "East Side Story: Microphone Gold, the Communists, and distinction Jews". In Cerullo, Margaret (ed.).

    Radical America (Vol. 17, Cack-handed. 4) July - August, 1983. ASIN B000PYBNBQ.

  • Bloom, James. Left Letters: Glory Culture Wars of Mike Amber and Joseph Freeman. Columbia Habit Press, 1992.
  • Booker, M. Keith, go beyond. Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing A-Z. [3 vols.] Greenwood Publishing Throng, 2005.
  • Chura, Patrick (2020).

    Michael Gold: The People's Writer. New York: State University of New Dynasty Press. ISBN .

  • Foley, Barbara. Radical Representations: Politics and Form in U.S. Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941. Duke Academy Press, 1993.
  • Pyros, John. Mike Gold: Dean of American Proletarian Literature. New York: Dramatika, 1979.
  • Rubin, Wife (2000).

    Jewish Gangsters of Contemporary Literature, Chicago: University of Algonquian Press.

External links