Date: Wed, 29 Jan 97 01:42:12 UT From: "charlotte kates" <CKates-AT-msn.com> Subject: M-I: RE: CPUSA and Culture (Post #2) Another excellent work on the CPUSA and culture is Barbara Foley's excellent revisionary study of proletarian literature, Radical Representations. Defying traditional and newer methods of analysis, Foley presents one of the most comprehensive, sympathetic and truthful accounts of the 1930's in culture available. Comradely, Charlotte ---------- From: owner-marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU on behalf of Louis N Proyect Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 8:36 PM To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: M-I: CPUSA and Culture (Post #2) Kevin Cabral asked me to recommend books on the CP and culture. These are three that I am using as background in my profile of Fred Baker, but I'm sure that there are many others out there. The first is a book by Robert Cantwell called "When We Were Good--The Folk Revival" (Harvard, 1996). The cover leaf is pretty accurate in stating that "a body of music once enlisted on behalf of the labor movement, antifascism, New Deal recovery efforts, and many other progressive causes of the 1930s was refashioned as an instrument of self-discovery, even as it found new agenda and styles in the peace, civil rights and beat movements." In a similar vein is "My Song is My Weapon--People's Songs, American Communism, and The Politics of Culture 1930-1950" by Robbie Lieberman (University of Illinois, 1989). This book as the title indicates is more directly involved with the CP as an organization and the choral group it initiated called People's Songs. Fred Baker was a member of People's Songs as was Irwin Silber, a well-known socialist activist who led a group called Line of March in the 1980s. In the introduction, Lieberman notes that People's Songs drew on the traditions of abolitionists, labor organizers, populists, socialists and others who had used songs in their efforts to change the world. The organization was formed during a decisive period in American politics in order 'to create, promote, and distribute songs of labor and the American people.' To this end People's Songs produced concerts, filmstrips, songsheets, and a songbook; staged concerts and hootenannies; and taught classes in the use of music for political action. People's Songs held one naional convention, in 1947, and devoted a major effort to Henry Wallace's 1948 presidential campaign. At its height People's Songs had between two and three thousand members, with strong chapters in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Its Board of Sponsors included Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Paul Robeson." The third book is Martin Duberman's biography of Paul Robeson, which is available in paperback everywhere. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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