Scope and Content Note
The papers of Herbert Benjamin (1900-1983) span the years 1915-2004, with the bulk of the material dating from 1923 to 1982. They are arranged as general correspondence, subject files, writings, and oversize. A large portion of the collection relates to Benjamin’s activities as a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from 1921 to 1944, particularly his work as a leader of the organized unemployed movement during the 1930s.
The most detailed information about Herbert Benjamin’s life as a communist in the 1920s and 1930s is in his unfinished autobiography, “Memoirs of an Indelible Red,” filed in the writings section. Benjamin devoted the last decade of his life to writing and rewriting his autobiography. In his drafts, Benjamin described the experiences that led him to join the Industrial Workers of the World and then the Communist Party. He recounts his attendance at the 1922 Communist Party convention in Bridgman, Michigan; his work in Buffalo, Cleveland, and New York, and in Philadelphia, Reading, and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; his leadership of the first and second National Hunger marches on Washington, D.C., in 1931 and 1932; the work to organize the unemployed during the Depression; and the circumstances which led him to end his public association with the CPUSA. The writings also contain Benjamin’s statements of his political beliefs and personal reassessments over four decades.
Subject files contain records of the organizations in which Benjamin worked on behalf of the unemployed in the 1930s, including the National Unemployment Council, the Unemployed Councils, and the Workers Alliance of America. Files of the CPUSA relate to Benjamin’s nationwide speaking tour in 1940 for the purpose of “party building.” Subject files compiled in later years on people, issues, and current events often include Benjamin’s thoughts on the topics. Files on “Historians” document Benjamin’s contact with historians in the 1970s and his reaction to historical assessments of the organized unemployed movement in the 1930s.