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Arthur H. Landis Papers

Call Number

ALBA.066

Date

1915-1985, inclusive

Creator

Landis, Arthur H., 1917-1986

Extent

4.5 Linear Feet (5 boxes)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Abstract

Arthur H. Landis (1917-1986) was a U.S. volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. Arriving in Spain in April 1937, he first served as a scout, a typographer, and an artillery spotter with the (Canadian) MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion, and later served with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. In 1967, Landis wrote The Abraham Lincoln Brigadeabout U.S. volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, and later published Spain! The Unfinished Revolution, about the political complexities of the war. The Arthur H. Landis Papers contain correspondence and writings produced between 1960 and 1985; family papers, 1910-1940, and miscellaneous ephemera and artifacts relating to Landis's service in Spain.

Historical/Biographical Note

Arthur H. Landis (1917-1986) was born into a family of vaudeville performers in Birmingham, Alabama in 1917, and spent most of his youth in Redondo Beach, California. During the Depression, Art Landis moved across the Western states picking up work in canneries and mills, and on fruit farms. In April 1937, at 19, he went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He served as a scout, typographer, artillery spotter, and commissar with the (Canadian) MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion, and fought in the battles of Aragon and Teruel, where he was injured. Landis also worked for a stint for an intelligence unit, and participated in an abortive operation to blow up the Italian Fleet headquarters. Just before Barcelona fell to Franco's forces, Landis helped load the 15th International Brigade archives onto a Soviet ship. He sailed back to the U.S. on the R.M.S. Ausonia in December 1938.

Shortly after his return to the U.S., Landis married Ruth Jurow and went to work for her father as a ladies clothing salesman in Rochester, Minnesota. Struggling financially, Landis and Jurow moved to Mexico City before settling in California in 1944. Landis and Jurow later divorced. It was in the mid-1950s that Landis began to pursue a career as a writer. In 1967 he published The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an account of the experiences of Americans who fought in the Spanish Civil War. The book was based largely upon the reminiscences of Lincoln Brigade veterans, which Landis collected via correspondence and on audiotapes (the latter comprise the bulk of the Arthur H. Landis Oral Hustory Collection [ALBA Audo 66]). The year his book came out, Landis was awarded a medal by the Presidium of the Soviet Committee of War-Veterans for his "great contribution in the history of the struggle of the Internationalists against fascism on the battlefields of Spain." In 1972, Landis published Spain! The Unfinished Revolution, about the political complexities on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. The book was published by Camelot Publishing, a company run by Landis with close friend and fellow SCW veteran, Manny Harriman. Despite a bitter dispute with the leadership of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) in the mid-1970s over the unauthorized translation into Russian of one of his essays, Landis remained devoted to VALB throughout his life, contributing occasional articles to the association's newsletter, The Volunteer, and maintaining close associations with many VALB members.

In addition to his political writing and radical activism (he participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s, among other activities), Landis established himself as a fantasy and science fiction writer. He published, edited and wrote for Coven 13, a fantasy magazine, in the late 1960s, and wrote a series of fantasy/science fiction novels (occasionally under the pen name "James R. Keaveny," after an old family friend). Landis also published and wrote for Dealer's Voice, a motorcycle magazine. Through the 1970s, Landis worked occasionally as an automotive parts firm's truck driver to supplement his writing income.

Landis died of bone cancer in January 1986 in Los Angeles.

Arrangement

Series I and 3 are arranged alphabetically; Series II is arranged alphabetically by correspondent, with Landis' replies integrated. Series IV is arranged alphabetically by title of work, with related correspondence and research preceding typescript of each work. Series V is a flat box of artifacts and ephemera.

The files are organizeded in 5 series:

Missing Title

  1. I. Family Files
  2. II. Correspondence
  3. III. Subject Files
  4. IV. Writings
  5. V. Artifacts/Memorabilia

Scope and Content Note

The collection consists of correspondence and writings of Arthur Landis, family papers, and miscellnaeous items of ephemera and artifacts, some realting to Landis's service in the Spanish Civil War.

Series I: Family Files, consists of correspondence (including local postcards) of Arthur Landis's mother, Alice Fries with friends and family as she traveled to small towns across the Midwest and West working variety shows as a singer and dancer. Fries became Alice Landis when she married William N. Landis, Arthur's father. William, also a performer, entered the army in 1920. By 1922 the couple was estranged. Alice then married her stage partner, Richard Yaryan, and changed her name to Alice Yaryan. In the late 1930s Alice sometimes used Alice Harper as a stage name (her father's first name was Harper) when she performed in the duo Harper and King. Also included in this series are: Alice's membership book in the American Guild of Variety Artists, in which dues stamps are pasted; a leather-bound diary kept in 1884 by Harper Fries while traveling in Mexico; posters and playbills, including one listing Alice as "Alice Landis, Dancing De Luxe"; programs from the Works Progress Administration Federal Theater in San Francisco and Los Angeles; contracts for the duo Yaryan and Landis, performing as the "Fast Stepping Man and Maid." The series includes many letters from Art Landis's brother, William H. Landis, to Alice; a letter from William to Alice in 1940 notes that Art Landis had moved to Mexico City, where he "might be able to cash in on his Spanish."

Note: Family photographs from Arthur and Alice's scrapbooks, many of Alice on assorted chorus lines and variety shows, can be found in the Arthur H. Landis Photograph Collection (ALBA Photo 66).

Series II: Correspondence, consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence, mostly from 1965 through 1985, mostly with SCW veterans (including Alva Bessie, Theodore [Ted] Cogswell, Carl Geiser, Steve Nelson, Albert Prago, Al Robbins, Saul Wellman, and Milton Wolff) dealing with matters pertaining to VALB, to Landis's books, to various writing and film projects, and to politics. What began as a letter from Landis seeking fellow veteran Cogswell's help in getting published (Cogswell was a science fiction writer and an officer of the Science Fiction Writers of America) blossomed into a long friendship in which the two read, critiqued, and collaborated on each other's work. Carl Geiser encloses in one letter a detailed memo prepared for the Prisoner Historical Committee of VALB, in which he reports his findings for writing a history of the Americans taken prisoner during the SCW. The file "General Correspondence" includes the enclosure in a letter to Landis of a Bill prepared for Congress seeking veterans' rights for the SCW volunteers.

Series III: Subject Files. This series documents a publishing venture with Manny Harriman, Camelot Publishing. It also includes contracts and correspondence with DAW Books, publishers of Landis's science fiction writings; an issue of Coven 13, published by Landis, and submissions of poetry, art, and stories to the magazine; book jackets for his published works; correspondence with Ring Lardner, Jr. requesting blurbs for Landis's books; and a typescript copy of "The Volunteers," a screenplay by Lardner about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Among the Spanish Civil War-era documents and ephemera are Landis's carnet militar (military passbook) for the International Brigades; a sign-up sheet collecting "pesetas for a fiesta," in Christmas of 1937; certificates of commendation in Spanish issued circa 1938 to Evelyn Hutchins Rahman, Wilhelm Werner, and Philip Detlo; the "Ocean Times," the on-board paper of the R.M.S. Ausonia, on which Landis returned from the War; and postcards of Lincoln Brigade members Yale Stuart and Sam Spiller, among others. VALB materials include meeting minutes, general mailings to members, and payment agreements for Landis's writings; marked-up drafts of the VALB Constitution; and an extended correspondence in the mid-1970s debating an unauthorized translation into Russian of an essay written by Landis for VALB.

Series IV: Writings. Landis's nonfiction focuses mainly on the U.S. volunteers' participation in the Spanish Civil War; his fiction and teleplays are largely fantasy and science fiction. Files relating to his writings on Abraham Lincoln Brigade include correspondence, research material, and notes sketching out the major battles in which Brigade members participated; notes and correspondence on the audiotaping of veterans; and typescripts. Files relating to Spain! The Unfinished Revolutioninclude correspondence and reviews. The series also includes aryicles, book reviews, letters to the editor, and a screenplay, "The Volunteer (The Class of '37)", about the Lincoln Brigade. Fiction includes typescripts for novels Little Wars of the Omega Quadrant, A Path of Moonstones, and Roland.

Series V: Artifacts/Ephemera consists of two Spanish Civil War commemorative medals awarded to Landis in the 1960s; a pocket mileage converter; shoe taps and a banjo string, mementos kept by Alice Fries; and sheet music with vaudeville songs, including handwritten scores composed by Richard Yaryan.

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

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), were transferred to New York University in November 2000 by the ALBA Board of Governors. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. For more information, contact 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.

Provenance

The Arthur H. Landis Collection was donated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives by Arthur H. Landis in the early 1980s. This collection came to New York University in January 2001 as part of the original acquisition of Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives collections, formerly housed at Brandeis University.

Separated Material

Photographs and audio tapes from the Arthur H. Landis Collection have been processed as separate collections.

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

Arthur H. Landis Audiotape Collection (ALBA Audio 66)

Arthur H. Landis Photographs (ALBA Photo 66)

Other ALBA collections at the Tamiment Library.

Collection processed by

Wendy Scheir, June 2004, Gail Malmgreen, 2011

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:34:30 -0400.
Language: Description is in English.

Edition of this Guide

This version was derived from Landis ALBA 66.doc

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