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Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers, 1925-2001

Title: Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers

Simon W. (Si) Gerson, 1909-2004, was the longtime New York State, and later national legislative/political action director for the Communist Party, and was an advocate of proportional representation and ballot access for minor political parties, including in the 1980s-90s as a leader of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE). He served as Confidential Examiner to Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, 1938-40, managed Communist election campaigns (later writing a biography Pete: The Story of Peter V. Cacchione, New York's First Communist Councilman), and organized activities in support of the Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act, as was Gerson. In the 1950s he was executive editor of the Party's newspaper, the Daily Worker, and of its later successor, the Daily World. Along with his wife, Sophie Melvin Gerson, an organizer of the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929, he was a longtime resident of and community activist in the Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The papers contain clippings, correspondence with leading communists and political figures, published and unpublished writings including manuscripts, memorandums, newspaper columns, reviews and reports, a scrapbook and speeches, including materials relating to Cacchione's career and death, and to Gerson's several campaigns for public office, research notes and typescript drafts for several chapters of a never-completed book, "Do We Really Have Free Elections (ca. 1990)," a related manuscript by Adam Lapin, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The American Two Party System," Communist Party internal documents, including reports by leading figures, many relating to the communist political crises of 1956-58 and 1989-91, and minutes of and correspondence relating to COFOE and the publication Ballot Access News.

ArchivalResource: 15 Linear Feet in 30 manuscript boxes, 1 record carton, 1 flat box and 1 oversize folder in a shared flat box.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_330/tam_330.html View

Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers, 1925-2001

Title: Guide to the Simon W. and Sophie Gerson Papers

Simon W. (Si) Gerson, 1909-2004, was the longtime New York State, and later national legislative/political action director for the Communist Party, and was an advocate of proportional representation and ballot access for minor political parties, including in the 1980s-90s as a leader of the Coalition for Free and Open Elections (COFOE). He served as Confidential Examiner to Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs, 1938-40, managed Communist election campaigns (later writing a biography Pete: The Story of Peter V. Cacchione, New York's First Communist Councilman), and organized activities in support of the Communist Party leaders indicted under the Smith Act, as was Gerson. In the 1950s he was executive editor of the Party's newspaper, the Daily Worker, and of its later successor, the Daily World. Along with his wife, Sophie Melvin Gerson, an organizer of the Gastonia Textile Strike of 1929, he was a longtime resident of and community activist in the Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The papers contain clippings, correspondence with leading communists and political figures, published and unpublished writings including manuscripts, memorandums, newspaper columns, reviews and reports, a scrapbook and speeches, including materials relating to Cacchione's career and death, and to Gerson's several campaigns for public office, research notes and typescript drafts for several chapters of a never-completed book, "Do We Really Have Free Elections (ca. 1990)," a related manuscript by Adam Lapin, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The American Two Party System," Communist Party internal documents, including reports by leading figures, many relating to the communist political crises of 1956-58 and 1989-91, and minutes of and correspondence relating to COFOE and the publication Ballot Access News.

ArchivalResource: 15 Linear Feet in 30 manuscript boxes, 1 record carton, 1 flat box and 1 oversize folder in a shared flat box.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_330/tam_330.html View

Al Lannon FBI Files, 1930s-1960s

Title: Al Lannon FBI Files 1930s-1960s

Al Lannon (1907-1969), born Albert Vetere, was an Italian American Communist and a leading figure in the Communist Party USA's orgainizing and labor union activism involving merchant mariners and stevedores, from 1930 through 1955. As an organizer for the Waterfront Sections of both the CPUSA, and for the New York State CP, he was one of the founders of the National Maritime Union, which represented merchant mariners on the East and Gulf coasts, and on the Great Lakes. From 1943-45 he was District Organizer of the Party's Maryland-Washington, DC district. In 1957 he moved to San Francisco, California, and remained a rank and file Communist activist, along with his wife Elva, until his death. The collection contains twelve FBI files re: Al Lannon (1907-1969), Communist maritime workers leader, two files on wife, Elva Elizabeth Lannon (also a Communist activist), one file on his son, Albert Francis Lannon, Jr., later also known as Albert Vetere Lannon. There is also an FBI report, "Communist Infiltration of the Merchant Marine (1955; 88 pp.) While the files were apparently received in 1977, in response to an FOIA request filed by Lannon, Jr., also included is one file, containing historian Harvey Klehr's "Notes from Al Lannon's FBI File," apparently from a separate FOIA request, ca. 1981.

ArchivalResource: 1.5 linear feet; (2 boxes)

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_515/tam_515.html View