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John Gerassi Papers

Call Number

ALBA.018

Date

1979-1983, 2000s, inclusive

Creator

Gerassi, John

Extent

11.25 Linear Feet in 10 manuscript boxes and 7 record cartons

Language of Materials

Most materials are in English, though there are some materials in Spanish and French.

Abstract

Journalist and scholar John ("Tito") Gerassi received his MA at Columbia University and earned his doctorate at the London School of Economics. Among his publications are The Great Fear inLatin America (1965), The Boys of Boise (1966), and the biography Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century (1989). The Premature Anti-Fascists: Oral History of American and Canadian Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War was published in 1986, and is a tribute to the men and women who volunteered to fight on behalf of the Spanish Republic. This collection consists chiefly of full transcriptions of 65 of the oral histories that were conducted for Gerassi's project (with supporting research materials) and unprocessed materials relating to Gerassi's research on Jean-Paul Sartre.

Historical/Biographical Note

Journalist and scholar John ("Tito") Gerassi was born in France in July 1931, to Fernando Gerassi, a Turkish-born artist of Sephardic Jewish heritage, and Ukranian born Stepha Awdykowicz. Moving between Barcelona and Paris, the couple belonged to the cosmopolitan circle of artists and intellectuals who congregated in cafes to argue art and politics, and counted Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir as close friends. When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, Fernando Gerassi joined the Loyalist forces. He served as a general in the Spanish Army and became the inspiration for the figure of Gomez, the artist and revolutionary in Sartre's trilogy Roads to Freedom. Following the Fascist victory in Spain, the Gerassi family emigrated to the United States in 1940. John Gerassi was raised in New York City and attended Columbia University. He spent a decade in journalism, worked as an editor for Timeand, later, Newsweek before serving as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. He left journalism to pursue a career in academia and earned his doctorate at the London School of Economics. He was an instructor at the John Kennedy Freedom School in Berlin and at the University of California at Irvine before joining the faculty of Queens College of the City University of New York in 1978. Among his publications are The Great Fear in Latin America (1965); The Boys of Boise (1966); the biography Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century (1989); and "The Comintern, the Fronts and the CPUSA," in New Studies in the Politics and Culture of U.S. Communism (1993).

His father's death in 1974 and his own subsequent journey to Barcelona the following year kindled his interest in the Spanish Civil War and the men and woman who volunteered to fight on behalf of the Republic. The Premature Anti-Fascists: Oral History of American and Canadian Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, Gerassi's tribute to these volunteers, was published in 1986. In the preface to that work, he describes his methodology for selecting and recording the oral histories that became the foundation for his study. In the spring of 1979, Gerassi sent out one-page questionnaires to 300 U.S. and Canadian veterans of the Spanish Civil War:

"From the 210 answers, I selected 50 absolute 'musts' to be personally interviewed. By making another 100 phone calls, I chose another 30. And 50 more were picked along the way, either by Mr. Ray Villis, my principal interviewer, or by myself and Ms. Chantal Ferraro, my main researcher…. Of the 130 interviewed, 65 were fully transcribed; the rest were used for background verification. The resulting 18,000 pages were then edited down by me…. Rather than fill scores of pages with tridots, brackets, and explanatory footnotes, I took the liberty of editing the interviews so that each section could read smoothly as a narrative."

Although the study is a sympathetic and admiring portrait of the veterans as a group, and Gerassi took pains to remain true to the intent and voice of the individual accounts, some of the veterans were displeased with Gerassi's polished edits of their oral histories.

Arrangement

Series I is arranged alphabetically by name. Series II is arranged alphabetically by topic. Series III is unprocessed.

Organized into three series:

Missing Title

  1. Series I: Oral History Transcripts
  2. Series II: Subject Files
  3. Series III: Unprocessed Materials

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of oral history transcripts from Gerassi's project, The Premature Anti-Fascists: Oral History of American and Canadian Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, as well as materials used by Gerassi in the course of researching and writing the book. The collection also contains research conducted for his books on Jean-Paul Sartre.

Subjects

Topics

Access Restrictions

Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.

Use Restrictions

Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder. For more information, please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date; Collection name; Collection number; box number; folder number;
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.

Custodial History

The John Gerassi Collection was donated to Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives in three separate accessions. The bulk of the material was donated by John Gerassi in 1983. Subsequent donations were made by Betsy Gimbel in 1988 and by Ray Villis in 1997. This collection came to New York University in January 2001 as part of the original acquisition of ALBA collections, formerly housed at Brandeis University. In 2012, an additional donation was made to NYU's collection by John Gerassi's daughter, Lara.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Access copies for some materials are available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information, to request digitization of materials, and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.

Separated Material

Photographs and audiotapes from the John Gerassi Collection have been transferred to the non-print section of the ALBA collection in the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Approximately one linear foot of personal materials from the 2012 accretion was returned to the Gerassi family.

Related Material at the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Archie Brown Papers, ALBA #207.

John Gerassi Oral History Collection, ALBA Audio #18

Vincent Lossowski Papers, ALBA #71.

Irving Weissman Papers, ALBA #165.

Alvah Bessie Papers, ALBA #24.

Robert Colodny Papers, ALBA #211.

Collection processed by

Craig Savino and Jessica Weglein, July 2005

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:33:23 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from Gerassi ALBA #18

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012