Higley Hill Camp (Wilmington, Vt.).

Biographical notes:

Camp Higley Hill was a summer camp in Vermont (1946-1964) owned and operated by Max and Grace Granich, the latter having served as the personal secretary to Earl Browder, Communist Party, USA General Secretary from 1930 to 1945.

From the guide to the Higley Hill Camp Records, undated, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)

Higley Hill Camp, a left-wing summer camp for children in Wilmington, Vermont, was owned and operated by Max and Grace Granich. Max Granich joined the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) in the late 1920s; he also served as chauffeur and bodyguard for Earl Browder, General Secretary of the CPUSA, and as Managing Editor of China Today. Grace Granich was a key administrative figure in the national office of the CPUSA from 1930 to 1945, serving as secretary to Browder and as a member of its Organization Department. Following the postwar expulsion of Browder from the CPUSA, the Graniches distanced themselves from the Communist Party and in 1946 opened Higley Hill Camp, which they ran until 1964.

Paula Lieber Gerson and Linda Lieber Levy are sisters and former Higley Hill campers. Gerson is a professor of Art History. Gerson and Levy and their husbands, Bill and Alex, managed Higley Hill for a number of years after the Graniches retired until the Graniches sold the camp. After Higley Hill was sold, the Levys opened their own summer camp, Apple Hill, which many former Higley Hill campers attended.

From the guide to the Higley Hill Camp Photographs., Bulk, 1940-1969, 1940s-1997, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)