Series: Correspondence

Alvah Bessie/Helen Bessie/Eva Bessie Correspondence, 1950-1951
Physical Description: 191 letters (including a few inserts) 
Scope and Content Note: Correspondence exchanged between Alvah Bessie, his wife Helen Clare Nelson Bessie, and their daughter Eva (aged 6 in 1950) from just before Alvah Bessie's sentencing for contempt of Congress in June 1950 to his release from Texarkana Prison in April 1951 (the entire correspondence was sent to Eva Bessie Wilson by Alvah Bessie in 1968).

Alvah and Sylviane Bessie's Letters to Eva Bessie Wilson and her family, 1965-1986
Physical Description: 117 letters 
Scope and Content Note: Correspondence from Alvah and Sylviane Bessie to Alvah's daughter Eva, her husband Wes Wilson, and their children (the Wilsons' side of the correspondence is not included).

Miscellaneous professional correspondence
Scope and Content Note: Exchanges of letters (usually the letters received by Alvah Bessie and carbons of his own letters) between Alvah Bessie and others concerning matters of politics, writing, publishing, screenwriting, employment, et cetera. The correspondence falls into a series of discrete groups of letters over a short period on a particular topic, and these groups have been foldered here by correspondents in chronological order of the beginning of the correspondence.

Henry Moe of the Guggenheim Foundation, 1935-1950, on Alvah Bessie's Guggenheim Writer's Award

Ernest Hemingway, open letter from the Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, 1940

Henry Shine, regarding a projected anti-Hitler magazine, 1941

Luther Adler, regarding publishing matters, 1948

Elia Kazan, regarding producing a play by Alvah and Helen Clare Nelson Bessie, 1948

Ramón Sender, regarding his novel The King and the Queen, 1948

Screen Writer's Guild, regarding Alvah Bessie's membership, 1951

Herbert [?], regarding writing for L'écran Français/Les Lettres Françaises, May 19, 1952

Morris [?] of the International Longshore Workers Union, regarding Alvah Bessie's employment by the Union, 1953

People's World magazine, notes for articles and correspondence about book reviews, 1956

Harry Bridges, regarding Alvah Bessie's position with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, 1958

Dalton Trumbo and Angus [?] of Cameron Associates, regarding a film or novel drawing on Alvah Bessie's night-club experiences, 1958

Oronite statement, returned by Cuban revolutionary management, 1961

Herb Caen, regarding a gossip column item on Alvah Bessie, 1961

San Francisco Chronicle, regarding an article on the Rosenberg case, 1965

David and Daniel Bessie, and Jaime Camino, regarding the screenplay for the film The Hostages, 1971-1975

Time magazine, in response to an article about Charles Chaplin, 1972

Robert Crichton, regarding his father, Kyle Crichton, 1975

Victor Navasky, about his HUAC research, 1975

Ring Lardner, Jr., in response to a review of his book My Family Remembered, 1976

Ring Lardner, Jr., Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, and the San Francisco Chronicle, in relation to an article by Lardner, 1978

Lester Cole, in relation to his book Hollywood Red, 1982

PEN American Center (especially Kathy Boyle), regarding a possible award for Alvah Bessie, 1982

Martha Gellhorn, principally about a television documentary-drama on Ernest Hemingway in Spain, 1982-1985

Edward Anser, about an appeal on behalf of El Salvador trade-unionists, 1984

Ring Lardner, Jr., in relation to his book, All for Love, 1985

Lou Gottlieb, about the introduction to a performance of some of Alvah Bessie's songs, 1985