Daily Worker

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Daily Worker
No. 254 of the Daily Worker (November 7, 1927)
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet and tabloid
Founded1924 (1924)
Ceased publication
January 1958
Political alignment
Communist; socialist
LanguageEnglish
Headquarters
CirculationVarious

The Daily Worker was a leftist newspaper published in Chicago and later in New York City. Founded in 1924 by communists, socialists, union members, and other activists,[1] the newspaper throughout its existence generally promoted the views of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), although it also reflected a broader spectrum of left-wing opinion.[2][3]

At its peak, the Daily Worker achieved a circulation of 35,000. Contributors to its pages included Robert Minor and Fred Ellis (cartoonists), Lester Rodney (sports editor), David Karr, Richard Wright, John L. Spivak, Peter Fryer, Woody Guthrie, and Louis F. Budenz. The newspaper ceased daily publication in 1958 and transitioned to weekly frequency under various names until 2010. Since then, several online news and opinion outlets have claimed to be the Daily Worker's legitimate successor.

Materials published by the Daily Worker prior to 1964 are in the public domain due to nonrenewal of their copyright status.[4][5]

History

Origins

The Daily Worker originated as a weekly newspaper, the Ohio Socialist, published in Cleveland by the Socialist Party of Ohio from 1917 to November 1919. The Ohio Party joined the nascent Communist Labor Party of America (CLP) at the 1919 Emergency National Convention.

The Ohio Socialist was renamed Toiler in November 1919. The last Ohio Socialist issue was #94 November 19, 1919. The Toiler continued this numbering sequence (although a typographical error caused its debut issue on November 26, 1919 to be #85 instead of #95).[6] In 1921, the volume 'IV' was added, perhaps indicating the publication's fourth year in print. The issue numbers kept incrementing. The final edition of the Toiler was Vol. IV #207 January 28, 1922. The Worker continued the Toiler's numbering during its run: Vol. IV #208 February 2, 1922 to Vol. VI #310 January 12, 1924. The first Daily Worker edition was Vol. I #311.[7]

In 1920, with the CLP going underground, Toiler served as the Party's "aboveground" newspaper, put out by "The Toiler Publishing Association". It remained the paper of the CLP and its successors until February 1922.[8]

January 23, 1924, edition, covering the death of Vladimir Lenin

In December 1921 the Workers Party of America was founded and the Toiler merged with the biweekly Workers Council of the Workers' Council of the United States to found a six-page weekly, The Worker, published out of Chicago. On January 13, 1924, it was converted to daily frequency and relaunched as the Daily Worker,[9] using $100,000 that had been raised from an assortment of Communist-led groups.[3]

In 1927, the Daily Worker headquarters moved from Chicago to New York City.[10]

May Day parade float with statue reading the Daily Worker

Beginning in the popular front period of the 1930s, the Daily Worker broadened its coverage of the arts and entertainment. In 1935, it added comic strips and a sports page.[3] With contributions from David Karr, the sports page was edited and often written by Lester Rodney. The sports coverage combined enthusiasm for baseball with the usual Marxist social critique of capitalist society and bourgeois attitudes. It advocated for the desegregation of professional sports.[11][12]

Post-World War II

The McCarthy era compelled many subscribers to switch to less notoriously "Red" newspapers, and circulation of the Daily Worker dropped below 10,000.[3] Finally, in January 1958, the paper stopped publication.[13] On the cover of its final issue on January 13, the editorial board said it had been overwhelmed by "the financial burden on a shrinking Left-Wing movement beset by internal difficulties."[14]

Later that year, the Party introduced a weekend paper called The Worker, which ran till 1968. A Tuesday edition called The Midweek Worker was added in 1961,[15] and also operated through 1968.[16]

Two newspapers and a merger

In 1968, the publication was resumed as a New York daily paper, titled Daily World. In 1986 it merged with the West Coast weekly paper, the People's World, forming the People's Daily World. It lasted until 1991 when daily publication ended.[16] The new paper was cut back to weekly frequency and retitled People's Weekly World (later retitled People's World as to de-emphasize the weekly component).

Later claims of successors

Print publication of People's World ceased in 2010 in favor of an online edition.[17][18] As of 2012, People's World claims that, "Peoplesworld.org is a daily news website of, for and by the 99% and the direct descendant of the Daily Worker." Its publisher is Long View Publishing Company. The online newspaper is a member of the International Labor Communications Association and is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. Its staff members belong to the Newspaper Guild/CWA, AFL–CIO.[19]

Another publication, both in print as The Worker and online as Daily Worker USA, states that it is "Continuing The Daily Worker, Founded in 1924." The Worker is the Publication of the Central Committee of the Party of Communists USA, which itself claims to be continuing the legacy of the old CPUSA, and The Worker has been printed and distributed since at least 2020.[20][21]

Leadership

Editors

1924–1928J. Louis Engdahl
1925–1936William F. Dunne
1928–1930Robert Minor
1931–1932William Weinstone
1930, 1933–1940Clarence Hathaway
1940–1945Louis F. Budenz
1945–1947Morris Childs
1947–1958John Gates
1956–1958Si Gerson

Staff

Editorial staff members of the Daily Worker, 1934.
(L-R): Harry Raymond, Howard Boldt, Carl Reeve, Sender Garlin, Si Gerson, Harry Gannes, Jacob Burck, Milton Howard, and William Fuchs.

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

Pamphlets (through 1927)

Before establishing Workers Library Publishers in late 1927, the Party used the Daily Worker Publishing Company to produce and distribute pamphlets:

Later publications

See also

References

  1. Admin (August 25, 2009). "About People's World". People's World. Retrieved July 18, 2023.
  2. Pederson, Vernon (January 11, 2008). "Take It As Red". On The Media for National Public Radio. Archived from the original on August 21, 2008. Founded in 1924, the Daily Worker – which ceased to be a daily 50 years ago – was the de facto house organ of American Communism.
  3. Buhle, Paul (1998). "Daily Worker". In Buhle, Mari Jo; Buhle, Paul; Georgakas, Dan (eds.). Encyclopedia of the American Left (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0195120882.
  4. "The Daily Worker copyright information". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  5. "FAQ: How To Find Out Whether a Copyright Was Renewed?". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved August 27, 2025.
  6. Goldwater 1977, p. 42.
  7. Goldwater 1977, pp. 10, 30.
  8. "50 Years of Fighting Journalism". Daily World. July 14, 1968. p. 14 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Goldwater, Walter (1977) [1964]. Radical Periodicals in America, 1890-1950 (Third ed.). New York: University Place Book Shop. pp. 42, 46. LCCN 78107863.
  10. "Guide to the Daily Worker and Daily World Photographs Collection". Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. September 2018. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
  11. Rusinack, Kelly Elaine (December 1995). Baseball on the Radical Agenda: The Daily and Sunday Worker on the Desegregation of Major League Baseball, 1933 to 1947 (M.A. thesis). Clemson University.
  12. Rusinack, Kelly; Lamb, Chris (Fall 1999). "'A Sickening Red Tinge': The Daily Worker's Fight Against White Baseball". Cultural Logic. Vol. 3, no. 1. Archived from the original on March 9, 2005.
  13. "Daily Worker Dead at 34". Elmira Advertiser. Elmira, New York. Associated Press. January 13, 1958. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "The Daily Worker (Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.) 1924-1958". The Library of Congress. Retrieved October 11, 2026.
  15. "The Worker, American Marxist Weekly" (PDF). National Guardian. Vol. 13, no. 44. New York. August 14, 1961. p. 6.
  16. Vázquez, David J. (Spring 2009). "Jesus Colon and the Development of Insurgent Consciousness" (PDF). Centro Journal. 21 (1). The City University of New York: 96. ISSN 1538-6279.
  17. "Welcome to the NEW People's World online!". Communist Party USA. October 3, 2009. Archived from the original on January 19, 2019.
  18. "Legal Disclaimer & Terms of Service". People's World. Archived from the original on February 9, 2010.
  19. "About the People's World". People's World. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
  20. "About Us". The Worker. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
  21. "Home". The Worker. Retrieved April 11, 2024.
  22. Chambers, Whittaker (2001) [1952]. Witness (50th anniversary ed.). Washington, DC: Regnery Pub. pp. 206–207, 218–229, 252–259. ISBN 978-0-89526-789-4. LCCN 52005149. OCLC 49674545.
  23. "1934". Revolution's Newsstand. Retrieved October 2, 2026.
  24. Morris, George (1952). A Tale of Two Waterfronts. Daily Worker. p. 31. Retrieved June 12, 2021.

Further reading

Articles

  • Fetter, Henry D. "The Party Line and the Color Line: The American Communist Party, the Daily Worker and Jackie Robinson." Journal of Sport History 28, no. 3 (Fall 2001).
  • Gottfried, Erika, "Shooting Back: The Daily Worker Photographs Collection," American Communist History, vol. 12, no. 1 (April 2013), pp. 41–69.
  • Lamb, Christopher and Rusinack, Kelly E. "Hitting From the Left: The Daily Worker's Assault on Baseball's Color Line". Gumpert, Gary and Drucker, Susan J., eds. Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Communicating Baseball. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2002.
  • Rusinack, Kelly E. "Baseball on the Radical Agenda: The Daily and Sunday Worker Journalistic Campaign to Desegregate Major League Baseball, 1933-1947". Dorinson, Joseph, and Woramund, Joram, eds. Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream. New York: E. M. Swift, 1998.
  • Smith, Ronald A. "The Paul Robeson-Jackie Robinson Saga and a Political Collision". Journal of Sport History 6, no. 2 (1979).

Theses

  • Evans, William Barrett. "Revolutionist Thought in the Daily Worker, 1919-1939". Ph.D. dissertation. University of Washington, 1965.
  • Jeffries, Dexter. "Richard Wright and the 'Daily Worker': A Native Son's Journalistic Apprenticeship". Ph.D. dissertation. City University of New York, 2000.
  • Rusinack, Kelly E. "Baseball on the Radical Agenda: The Daily and Sunday Worker on Desegregating Major League Baseball, 1933-1947". M.A. Thesis, Clemson University, South Carolina, 1995.
  • Shoemaker, Martha McArdell. "Propaganda or Persuasion: The Communist Party and Its Campaign to Integrate Baseball". Master's thesis. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1999.

Books

  • Hemingway, Andrew. Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002.
  • Schappes, Morris U. The Daily Worker: Heir to the Great Tradition. New York: Daily Worker, 1944.
  • Silber, Irwin. Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003.