Summary Information
Albert Goldman Papers
1940-1959
Micro 434
1 reel of microfilm (35mm)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers of Albert Goldman, a Chicago lawyer who was a member of the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Workers Party and who was jailed under provisions of the Smith Act in 1944. The collection consists of correspondence, 1941-1959, with letters of note from Roger Baldwin, Max Eastman, and James T. Farrell. Half of the correspondence dates from 1948 and concerns the Workers Party, socialism, and Goldman's efforts to be reinstated to the bar. There are also briefs concerning the Minneapolis sedition case and his disbarment, a copy of a security hearing involving his sister, notes made by Goldman at the time of the sedition trial, and related research, clippings, and a pamphlet written by Goldman.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-micr0434 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Albert Goldman was born in Russia and came to the United States at the age of six, where he became a prominent labor attorney, first for the International Labor Defense, and later as a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Party. He attended grade school and Madill High School in Chicago. After his graduation from the University of Cincinnati in 1918, he attended Hebrew Union College, and in 1925 graduated from Northwestern University Law School.
Goldman had become acquainted with radicals and their doctrines, particularly the IWW's, while working in the Dakota wheat fields in 1919. He once wrote that early in his law practice he learned to like communists because they retained him very often as their counsel. After a trip to Russia in 1931, he became disenchanted with Russian communism and in 1933 was expelled from the Communist party as an anti-Stalinist. He served as Trotsky's personal attorney when the latter was admitted to Mexico, and acted as his counsel during the hearings of the Dewey Commission in 1936.
Goldman became attorney for the Minneapolis Teamsters in the strike of 1934, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters later charged that the CIO local was dominated by a Trotskyite group. Under the Smith Act, twenty-nine Socialist Workers Party members and members of the Truckdrivers Local 544-CIO were indicted in 1941 for conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government by force. Goldman, who served as the group's counsel, was one of the eighteen sent to prison. The case was in the appeal courts for more than two years, but on January 1, 1911, Goldman began serving his sixteen-month sentence.
After release from prison in 1945 he could not resume the practice of law, since he had been disbarred in 1943. With the help of his brother-in-law he established a car rental business, and set about trying to become reinstated at the bar. He had by then broken with the Cannonite Trotskyists and had joined the Workers Party as a Shachtman Trotskyist. By 1950 he was being described as a “right-wing” Socialist. In 1947, supported by the Workers Party, he was defeated in a campaign for mayor of Chicago on the Socialist ticket; and in 1948 he supported Norman Thomas for president.
In 1952, testifying at an Atomic Energy Commission security clearance hearing for his sister-in-law, Betty June Jacobsen, Goldman reviewed his ideological struggle with the Communist Party and later the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Party, and stated his relation to Trotsky. It was not until 1956 that the state of Illinois restored his right to practice law.
Scope and Content Note
Correspondence in the Goldman Papers consists of some 300 letters, 1941-1959, more than half of them written in 1948. The 1948 correspondence deals chiefly with the struggle of the Workers Party to make its voice heard, socialism, Goldman's own about-face regarding Russia, and his efforts to become reinstated to the bar.
Correspondence between 1940 and 1948 is scattered and disconnected; but, again, it deals with subjects similar to that of the later years. There are no letters to or from Trotsky in the papers. Later letters make more reference to Goldman's conversion to socialism; and contain some reference to Trotsky and particularly to Natalia Trotsky and the possible re-publication of books by and about Trotsky. Goldman's correspondence includes letters exchanged with men such as Max Eastman, Roger Baldwin, and James T. Farrell. Correspondence with friends in the party often reveals the thinking and plans of individuals who embraced his causes.
Other materials in the papers include notes made by Goldman at the time of the Minneapolis sedition trial, and research information relating to other espionage cases. There is also a folder of briefs concerning his disbarment in 1943; and a copy of the hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission's Personnel Security Board relating to security clearance for Goldman's sister-in-law, Betty June Jacobsen. Also present are printed records and clippings, and leaflets and annotated pamphlets by Goldman.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Mrs. Sherry Abel, New York, N.Y., July 26, 1962. The originals were discarded after microfilming.
Processed by Frank DeLoughery and Margaret Hafstad, February 25, 1964.
Contents List
|
Reel
1
|
Correspondence, 1940-1959
|
|
|
Reel
1
|
Briefs concerning disbarment, 1941-1956
|
|
|
Reel
1
|
Notes on sedition and espionage, circa 1941-1943
|
|
|
Reel
1
|
Security clearance hearing, AEC, 1952
|
|
|
Reel
1
|
Pamphlets, printed briefs, clippings
|
|
|
