- unitid
-
{"value"=>"20753", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"Sc MG 117", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1927-1972", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1927/1972"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Eugene Gordon papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division</span>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The collection ranges from 1927 to 1972 and consists of correspondence, manuscripts and printed matter. Gordon's writings, the bulk of the collection, are organized into three categories: Autobiographical, Fiction and Nonfiction. The autobiographical narratives range from stories of growing up black in New Orleans and rural Georgia to an enemy encounter during World War I in France. There is also a detailed diary of a writing retreat in the New Hampshire White Mountains in 1933. His fiction work includes a compilation of short stories and a complete draft of his novel \"Picnic in Court House Square.\" The nonfiction work ranges from his 1920s articles on the black press and a series of travel articles written in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, to later articles and essays on integration, the columnist George Schuyler and the civil rights movement. \"Black Women's Long Tough Course: from 'dat gal' Carline to This Woman Angela,\" written in defense of Angela Davis in 1972 was his last major essay."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Gordon, Eugene, 1891-1974", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>The African-American journalist and fiction writer Eugene Gordon was born in Oviedo, Florida in 1891, but was raised in the waterfront section of New Orleans. He studied English and journalism at Howard and Boston Universities and served in World War I in Europe, before joining the staff of the Boston Daily Post as an assistant feature writer in 1919. From 1924 to 1927, he conducted annual surveys of the black press for Opportunity magazine. His short story \"Game\" was awarded first and second prizes in Opportunity magazine's 1927 literary contest. His work, both fiction and nonfiction, appeared in that early period in American Mercury, Plain Talk, Scribner's, the Nation magazine and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Along with Helene Johnson and Dorothy West, he founded the Saturday Evening Quill Club of non-professional writers, and for three years edited its annual, The Saturday Evening Quill (1928-1930). He was also a co-founder of the Boston John Reed Club, and was the first editor of its magazine Leftward.</p> <p>A member of the American Communist party since 1931, Gordon co-authored with Cyril Briggs a pamphlet, The Position of Negro Women, and lived for a time in the Soviet Union where he worked as a reporter for the Moscow Daily News. He worked as a feature editor, reporter and writer for the Worker from 1938 to 1946. In the 1950s, he was on the staff of the National Guardian newspaper and, as a correspondent for that publication, attended the historic 1955 Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement. In addition, he wrote a column, \"Another Side of the Story\", for the African-American press from 1958 to 1959. Gordon was also an artist whose paintings were shown at the Hudson Guild Gallery, the District 65 union hall and the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library.</p> <p>Also an author, Gordon's first wife, Edythe Mae, wrote short stories and verses and was featured in the Saturday Evening Quill. A compilation of her work was published in 1996 (Selected Works of Edythe Mae Gordon, New York: G.K. Hall). His second wife, June Kroll, organized textile and millinery workers in the 1930s, and was executive director of the Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs at her death in 1967. By an earlier marriage, she had been the daughter-in-law of Ella Reeve Bloor, the widely known \"Mother Bloor\" of Communist Party politics. At his own death in 1974, Eugene Gordon was praised by Communist Party Chairman Henry Winston as a longtime activist in literary affairs and \"a dedicated partisan in the fight on many fronts for Democracy and Socialism\".</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Eugene Gordon Papers range from 1927 to 1972 and are organized into six series: PERSONAL, CORRESPONDENCE, ORGANIZATIONS, WRITINGS, the BANDUNG AFRO-ASIAN CONFERENCE and PRINTED MATTER AND FRAGMENTS. They consist for the most part of occasional correspondence, manuscripts and memorabilia. The last series, relevant only to a detailed study of the author's work, is in offsite storage.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Eugene Gordon papers are arranged in six series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114682'>Personal</a></div>\n</li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114696'>Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Gordon's letters to the editor written in the 1950s and 1960s were usually in the defense of the Soviet Union. His Nancy Cunard file in the CORRESPONDENCE series includes an exchange with Julius Lester who reviewed the 1969 reprint of Cunard's anthology Negro, and an essay \"The Green Hat Comes to Chambers Street\" written for Hugh Ford's memorial book, Nancy Cunard: Brave Poet, Indomitable Rebel. Gordon contributed an article \"Blacks Turn Red\" to Cunard's 1933 Negro anthology.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114706'>Organizations</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Much like his correspondence, only fragments of the author's political papers have survived. They form part of the ORGANIZATIONS series. A one-page statement tantalizingly discusses the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the context of the 1955 Bandung Conference, and challenges a sacred cow of Communist Party orthodoxy, the so-called \"Negro-Labor Alliance\". The file for the Chelsea Minority Action Organization includes material Gordon developed for a course on \"the Negro's Contribution to U.S. Civilization and Culture\", and a detailed memorandum to Roland Hayes on \"whether the Negro's organizations should be open to whites\".</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114715'>Writings</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Gordon's WRITINGS, the bulk of the collection, are organized into five subseries: Autobiographical, Fiction, Nonfiction, Research Material and Other Authors. The latter is a compilation of mostly published writings the author collected for the Saturday Evening Quill and for a proposed anthology of short stories.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114810'>Bandung Conference</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1955</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Included in this series is an exchange of letters between Gordon and the editor of the National Guardian newspaper, and a draft of the article the newspaper refused to publish on both a \"policy and journalism standpoint\". Gordon who referred in his article to the African contribution to the Conference as incidental or minor, attributed his difference with the newspaper to white chauvinism and \"blindness\". The Bandung files also comprise several draft articles on Indonesian grassroots organizations; notes of an interview with Moses Kotane, the South African trade-unionist and Communist Party leader who attended the conference as an observer; an account of the author's negative encounter with Richard Wright at the Conference; and an essay, \"Before - and Seven Years After\", on the antecedents, origins and aftermath of Bandung. Also included are eight copious travel diaries, voluminous background notes, and a notebook discussing Richard Wright's Color Curtain and Carl T. Rowan's The Pitiful and the Proud. Gordon's work was generally consumed with Jim Crow racism and the defense of the Soviet Union, but at Bandung, the author looked beyond the East-West divide at issue of grassroots organizing and social justice in the post-colonial world. In that particular instance, he was perhaps ahead of his time.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/scm/20753#c1114825'>Printed Matter, Fragments and Notes</a></div>\n</li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>I. Personal papers; II. Correspondence; III. Organizations; IV. Writings; V. Bandung Afro-Asian Conference; VI. Printed matter</p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Purchased from Bolerium Books, which acquired the papers from Gordon's granddaughter, Chiwe Gordon.</p>"}
- separatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>The following items were removed from:</p> <p>Schomburg Photographs and Print Division:</p> <p>1 box of photographs: Mostly portraits and family snapshots.</p> <p> Art and Artifacts Division:</p> <p>Tri-dimensional Jim Crow sign reading \"White\" on one side and \"Colored\" on another.</p> <p> Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division:</p> <p>— One vinyl LP record: 1953 anniversary of National Guardian newspapers. With W.E.B. DuBois, Shirley Graham DuBois and eugene Gordon.</p> <p>— 14 reel-to-reel audio tapes: Interviews with Moses Kotane, Mohammed Munir of the SOBSI federation of trade-unions, and Indonesian peasant and youth organizations. Also Indonesian music and Bandung songs. (Some duplication)</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Processed by Andre Elizee, 2006.</p>"}
- date_start
-
1927
- keydate
-
1927
- date_end
-
1972
- date_inclusive_start
-
1927
- date_inclusive_end
-
1972
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"[Item], Eugene Gordon papers, Sc MG 117, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library"}