Title: Alexander Trachtenberg Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1870-1975

Creator:

• Trachtenberg, Alexander, 1884-1966

Call Number: Mss 117

Quantity: 1.0 c.f. (3 archives boxes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Alexander Trachtenberg, an educator and publisher active in the socialist, labor, and communist movements. Present are incoming correspondence, mainly from the l950's and l960's (letters from L. B. Boudin, Norman Thomas, and Herbert Aptheker are included); printed and manuscript versions of his writings and speeches; biographical material and miscellany; and subject files on various organizations and events with which he was involved. Most notable among the latter are the files on International Publishers, his radical publishing firm; the Jefferson School of Social Science, which he helped to organize; and his trial under provisions of the Smith Act.

Language: English and Russian

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00117

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Alexander Trachtenberg was active for over half a century in the socialist, labor, and communist movements both as an educator and publisher. Born in Russia in 1884, he immigrated to the United States after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905. While a student at Trinity College and Yale University, he became a leader of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society founded by Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Florence Kelley and others. He specialized in economics and labor and wrote his doctoral dissertation on The History of Legislation for the Protection of Coal Miners in Pennsylvania. This was later published in book form.

On leaving Yale in 1915, Trachtenberg became a staff teacher and later director of the Rand School of Social Science in New York, founded ten years before by the Socialist Party. Here he organized a labor research department which served many trade unions and initiated the American Labor Year Book, predecessor of the Labor Fact Book. He became staff economist for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; and he served for many years as a board member of the New York Call, leading Socialist daily newspaper of the time which he had helped found in 1908. A member of the Socialist Party, he resigned in 1921 and became a founder and supporter of the Communist Party in the United States.

In 1924, with the assistance of his life-long friend, Abraham A. Heller, Trachtenberg founded International Publishers which became the leading U. S. publisher of Marxist writings. From that date, Trachtenberg devoted himself principally to the preparation and promotion of the books for which the firm is noted. Together with Robert W. Dunn, Anna Rochester, and Grace Hutchins, he founded the Labor Research Association in 1927 and remained an active collaborator. His publishing led to association with radical and left-wing writers' movements such as those around the old Masses, the New Masses, the John Reed Clubs, and the League of American Writers. He also helped develop the Workers School of New York and in 1943, the Jefferson School of Social Science.

International Publishers maintained an active publishing program under Trachtenberg's direction through many periods of changing public opinion in the United States, including the period of McCarthyism. Trachtenberg was convicted under the Smith Act together with twelve others, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, at a trial beginning in 1952 and lasting nine months. The Federal indictment charged that Trachtenberg and his co-defendants did “conspire to advocate and teach” the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and did conspire to “publish and circulate...books, articles, magazines and newspapers advocating the principles of Marxism-Leninism.” The “”Trial of Books” aroused world-wide attention and leading personalities protested it as a new form of “book burning.” Trachtenberg was sentenced to three years imprisonment, but he was released after three months when the principal witness against him, Harvey Matusow, confessed to perjury. He was re-tried in 1956 but his conviction was set aside upon appeal to the U. S. Court in New York. It was characteristic of Trachtenberg, then nearing 70, that while the case was before the courts, he published in 1954 the defiant book Looking Forward, containing excerpts from works then in progress by 19 American authors of International Publishers.

Trachtenberg suffered a stroke on December 13, 1966, and died three days later without regaining consciousness. His ashes were buried in Chicago, Illinois. Public memorial services were held December 22. He was survived by his wife, Rosalind.

(The above biography was primarily written by S. Luttrell, a U.W. Library School student, 1969.)

The Alexander Trachtenberg Papers date 1911-1968 and consist mainly of correspondence and clippings. They are organized in five groups: (1) General Correspondence, (2) Writings and Speeches, (3) a Subject File, (4) Biographical Materials, and (5) Miscellaneous Items.

The General Correspondence, mainly incoming and including several letters in Russian, totals only one folder, filed chronologically. The letters are of scattered dates between 1914 and 1968, with a concentration in the 1950's and early 1960's. Included are letters from L. B. Boudin, 1917; Norman Thomas, 1955, 1959; and Herbert Aptheker, 1960. Also included is a form letter from Norman Cousins, 1965, and one from Robert S. Cohen, Ossie Davis, and Staughton Lynd, 1966. One 1934 letter concerns the John Reed Clubs but the most typical letters are friendly greetings from friends. Also included are occasional copies of Trachtenberg's letters to the editor. Correspondence of a relevant specific nature also can be found in the Subject File and with the Biographical Materials.

The second group, Writings and Speeches, consists of clipped writings by Trachtenberg, 1921 and 1959 Congressional testimony by him, fragmentary notes apparently used in his writings, and reviews and other items concerning his books. Included are a very few typed and annotated drafts of his articles. Trachtenberg's articles primarily concern the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, socialism in general, the Paris Commune, international labor, and Marx, Engels, and Lenin. They were published in Pearson's Magazine, The Intercollegiate Socialist, Workers Monthly, Worker's Council, and The Communist, and in the newspapers the New York Call, Chicago Socialist, Advance, and Daily Worker.

The Subject File contains correspondence, clippings, and miscellaneous documents such as statements, discussion guidelines, constitutions, etc., concerning organizations and events with which Trachtenberg was involved. The largest folders are those of International Publishers and Trachtenberg's Smith Act trials.

Biographical Materials, the fourth group, consists again of correspondence, clippings, and miscellaneous other documents. One section concerns public celebrations of Trachtenberg's birthdays at ages 50, 60, 70, 75, and 80; he received greetings from many noteworthy people on these occasions. Another folder contains clippings reporting on his speeches and activities, particularly during 1917 and 1918. A third folder contains clipped obituaries and letters of condolences received at his death in 1966.

The final category, Miscellaneous Items, includes just five documents: (1) a page headed “Resolutions submitted to the Anti-War-Meeting, held at Cooper Institute, November 19th, 1870”; (2) a typed attack, written circa 1916 by an unidentified person, on A. M. Simons for his hostility to the Socialist Party; (3) a typed bibliography entitled “'The Marxist & Progressive Press in the United States, A Statistical & Historical Survey' compiled by Oakley C. Johnson, August 7, 1963”; (4) an undated memorandum on the closing of the Social Science Library, New York City, and connected problems; and (5) three typed pages entitled “Statement of the AFL Executive Council on Friendship Between the American and Russian People.”

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mrs. Rosalind Trachtenberg, New York, N.Y., 1967-1975. Accession Number: M67-328, M68-224, 234, & 326, M69-20, M71-98, M73-9, -437; M74-432; and M75-157

Processing Information

Processed by the 1969 archives class and Karen Baumann, September 11, 1970.

Box   1 Folder   1	General Correspondence, 1914-1968; undated Note: Correspondence from noteworthy individuals may also be found in the Subject File, Smith Act Trials and in Biographical Materials, Birthday Celebrations.
	Writings and Speeches
Box   1 Folder   2	Book Reviews by AT
Box   1 Folder   3	Congressional Testimony by AT, 1921; 1959
	Forewords and Periodical Articles by AT
Box   1 Folder   4	1911-1923
Box   1 Folder   5	1924-1957; undated
Box   1 Folder   6	Newspaper Articles by AT, 1911-1965
Box   1 Folder   7	Notes
Box   2 Folder   1-2	Notes, continued
Box   2 Folder   3	Reviews and Other Items concerning Books by AT
	Subject File
Box   2 Folder   4	Collegiate Anti-Militarism League, 1915
Box   2 Folder   5	Intercollegiate Socialist Society, 1912-1917
	International Publishers
Box   2 Folder   6	Correspondence, 1928-1965; undated
Box   2 Folder   7	Miscellaneous Note: Papers concerning International Publishers may also be found in Biographical Materials, Birthday Celebrations.
Box   3 Folder   1	Jefferson School of Social Science, 1943?; 1953-1956
Box   3 Folder   2	National Peace Conference, 1915
Box   3 Folder   3	Rand School, 1954; undated
Box   3 Folder   4	Smith Act Trials, 1951-1958
Box   3 Folder   5	Socialist Party, 1916; undated
	Biographical Materials
Box   3 Folder   6	Birthday Celebrations, 1934; 1944; 1954; 1959; 1964
Box   3 Folder   7	Miscellaneous Clippings about AT, 1911-1968; undated
Box   3 Folder   8	Miscellaneous Memorabilia
Box   3 Folder   9	Obituaries, Condolence Letters, etc., 1966-1967
Box   3 Folder   10-11	Miscellaneous Items, 1870-1975