Gardner, Virginia. Friend and lover.

Virginia Gardner (1904-1992) was a journalist, a communist, and biographer of Louise Bryant. She was raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1924, then worked at several Midwestern newspapers before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1930. Gardner gradually became a radical, joined the Communist Party c.1937, led the small Newspaper Guild group at the Tribune, and was fired for her union activism in March, 1940.

Blacklisted in Chicago, she moved to New York where she worked with the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee. After her divorce from journalist Marion (Red) Marberry, Gardner moved to Washington, DC in 1942, and was briefly Executive Secretary of the American Council on Soviet Relations. Between 1940 and 1942 Virginia Gardner was active as a member of the Citizens Committee for Harry Bridges, serving as its Executive Secretary in 1941. From 1942-1943 she worked for the Federated Press (a labor news service), resigning over its unwillingness to criticize John L. Lewis. Gardner next worked for the New Masses, resigning in 1947 when it became a monthly.

...