Robert Munson Taylor (1913-?) went to Spain in January 1937 to fight with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. During his time in Spain, he suffered a head injury and was at one point mistakenly reported as dead. Taylor fought in several major battles, including those in Villanueva de la Canada and Brunete. The collection includes little information about Taylor’s life following the war, but it is apparent that he regularly kept in touch with other Abraham Lincoln Brigade veterans. He was living in Detroit during the summer of 1938 when the local Red Squad raided his house and held him for two days. He was accused of illegally recruiting volunteers for Spain, and a political file was kept on him for the next forty years. In 1940 he was again arrested, this time by the FBI, when crossing the Canadian border into Michigan. By 1990, Taylor (then living in Birmingham, Michigan) had succeeded in obtaining copies of his Detroit Red Squad files.
Sources:
- Carroll, Peter N.
The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.)
From the guide to the Robert Munson Taylor Papers, 1937; 1940s; 1984-1990, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
