David Gordon Papers

David Gordon (1909-1973), a Communist trade unionist, author, editor and journalist, was born in the Ukraine, and immigrated to the U.S. when he was three. In 1924, he was convicted of obscenity for writing the poem "America" (published in the Daily Worker, the Communist Party USA's newspaper) which compared America to a whorehouse. Gordon was paroled to the University of Wisconsin Experimental College where he had a Zona Gale literary scholarship and studied for two years. He became active in the trade union movement and was appointed an organizer for the Paper, Pulp and Sulphite Workers Union, then became a Communist Party organizer in Toledo where he was involved in the Autolite strike of 1934. From 1936-1938, Gordon served with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter was temporarily held in a concentration camp on the French border. In September 1942, he entered the United States Army where he wrote press releases about soldiers' families and feelings which were published in the subjects' hometown newspapers. He also wrote recommendations for medals. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he wrote feature articles for medical journals and was active in teaching communist ideology and history. He was an editor of American Dialog a Communist-initiated cultural periodical, and served on the Cultural Commission of the Communist Party USA. In 1970, Gordon became the cultural editor of the Communist Party's newspaper, then titled the People's Daily World. He made several trips to Cuba and wrote extensively on his experiences. Shortly before his death on June 21, 1973, he toured the Soviet Union.