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Alfred Wagenknecht and Hortense Allison and Helen and Carl Winter Family Papers

Call Number

TAM.583

Date

circa 1890-2002, inclusive

Creator

Wagenknecht, Alfred
Winter, Carl, 1906-1991
Winter, Helen, 1908-2001
Crockett, George W.
Artt, Michele (Role: Donor)

Extent

12.75 Linear Feet in 7 record cartons, 3 manuscript boxes, 3 oversize flat boxes

Language of Materials

Materials are in English, with some postcards in German.

Abstract

Carl Winter (1906-1991) and Helen Winter (1908-2001) were Communist Party USA activists and officials. Carl Winter was the Chair of the Communist Party of Michigan, was convicted in 1949 under the Smith Act of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the U.S., served three years in prison, and later became the editor of the Party's newspaper, The Worker. His wife Helen was a Smith Act defendant and daughter of Alfred Wagenknecht (1881-1956), a leading member of the Socialist Party, and later a charter member of the Communist Party USA. The collection contains correspondence, including Carl Winter's prison correspondence, family correspondence including that of Alfred Wagenknecht with his wife Hortense and daughters during the 1920s; some documentation of the political activity of Wagenknecht; clippings, most related to Helen Winter's Smith Act trial, and to the Winters' Michigan activism; Detroit Police Department Red Squad files on Carl and Helen Winter; FBI files; speeches; legal documents; Communist Party of Michigan printed ephemera; Allison family materials (the maternal branch of Helen's family); writings; interview transcripts; commemorative and memorial materials and memorabilia, and photographs.

Historical/Biographical Note

Carl Winter (1906-1991) and Helen Winter (1908-2001) were Communist Party USA activists and officials. Beginning in 1936, Carl Winter held leading posts in the CPUSA in Ohio, Minnesota and California. From 1945 until the mid-1960s, he was Chairman and District Organizer, and Helen Winter was Secretary, of the Communist Party of Michigan. During the McCarthy era, their positions in the CPUSA led to their arrests and indictments, and Carl Winter's imprisonment for three and a half years, under the Smith Act for conspiracy to overthrow the government of the U.S. After his release from prison in 1955, and the dismissal of charges against Helen Winter in 1958, they resumed leading roles in the Communist Party of Michigan and were both named to the National Committee of the CPUSA. In 1966, they moved to New York City where Carl Winter was editor-in-chief of The Worker, and co-editor of the Daily World. Helen Winter served as the International Affairs Secretary of the CPUSA, and was a founding member of the U.S. Peace Council. Both were members of the CPUSA's Political Bureau. In 1980, Carl Winter left his editorial post and became Chairperson of the CPUSA's Central Review Commission. That year the Winters returned to Detroit, where Carl Winter was active in developing the Midwest Labor Institute for Social Studies and Helen Winter operated Global Books.

Carl Winter was arrested on July 20, 1948 and tried and convicted with eleven other national leaders of the CPUSA under the Smith Act in what became known as The United States vs. Dennis. Winter was represented by George Crockett, an African-American attorney, leading member of the National Lawyer's Guild, and future Detroit circuit court judge and United States Congressman from Michigan. Helen Winter was arrested in 1952, and tried and convicted under the Smith Act with five other leading members of the Michigan Communist Party. The trial was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and charges were dismissed in 1957. Throughout her husband's imprisonment and her own trial, Helen Winter helped organize campaigns on behalf of Smith Act defendants through the National Committee to Win Amnesty for the Smith Act Victims, Families of the Smith Act Victims, and the Civil Rights Congress of Michigan.

Hortense Allison and Alfred Wagenknecht (1881-1956) were leaders of the Socialist Party of America in Washington State in the early twentieth century. In 1913, the family moved to Cleveland, where Wagenknecht was State Secretary of the Ohio Socialist Party. As a result of his active opposition to World War I, he was arrested and imprisoned in 1917 with Charles Ruthenberg in Canton, Ohio. In 1919, Wagenknecht presided over the founding convention, and was named National Secretary, of the Communist Labor Party of America, one of two organizations that would eventually merge to create the CPUSA. In 1924 Wagenknecht managed the fundraising drive for the Daily Worker and helped lead the 1926 strike of textile workers in Passaic, New Jersey.

Arrangement

The records are arranged in two series, which have been further arranged in subseries. The series and subseries arrangement of the records is as follows:

Series 1, Alfred Wagenknecht and Hortense Allison Correspondence and Photographs
Subseries 1, Correspondence
Subseries 2, Images and Memorabilia

Series 2, Carl and Helen Winter Papers
Subseries 1, Biographical and Memorabilia
Subseries 2, Correspondence
Subseries 3, Political Activities
Subseries 4, Smith Act Trials and Defense
Subseries 5, Photographs

Scope and Content

The collection contains legal documents, clippings (primarily related to Helen Winter's Smith Act trial), Detroit Police Department Red Squad files on Carl and Helen Winter from the 1940s and 1950s, Communist Party of Michigan and CPUSA printed ephemera and internal documents, writings (published and unpublished), speeches, notebooks, oral histories, photographs, and correspondence, including Carl Winter's prison correspondence with his family and attorneys from the early 1950s. The collection also includes correspondence between Alfred Wagenknecht, his wife Hortense and his daughters, mostly from the 1920s; documentary photographs and negatives from Wagenknecht's trips to London and Germany in 1922, and the Phillipines, China and Japan in 1924; and a scrapbook (circa 1910-1930) of Wagenknecht-Allison family photographs.

Donors

Artt, Michele

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Alfred Wagenknecht and Hortense Allison and Helen and Carl Winter were transferred to New York University in 2011 by Michele Artt. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Alfred and Hortense Wagenknecht and Carl and Helen Winter Family Papers; TAM 583; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Michele Stone Artt in 2011; additional materials were found in the repostiory in 2014. The accession numbers associated with this gift are 2011.072, 2011.073, 2011.099, and 2014.038.

Related Archival Materials

Communist Party of the United States of America Records (TAM 132)

Collection processed by

Peter Meyer Filardo, Nicole M. Greenhouse, Hanan Ohayon

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:37:42 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is in English

Processing Information

No original order was apparent in the collection upon receipt. Materials were grouped into folders, arranged into series and subseries, and described by the archivist.

Photographs were separated from this collection during initial processing and were established as a separate collection, the Carl and Helen Winter Photographs (PHOTOS 103). In 2013, the photograph collection was reincorporated into the Carl and Helen Winter and Alfred and Hortense Wagenknecht Family Papers and Photographs.

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