Israel Amter (1881-1954), founding member of the Communist Party, USA and a leading functionary into the 1940s, was born on March 26, 1881, in Denver to Jewish immigrant parents. He joined the Socialist Party in 1901, and in 1903 moved to Germany where he remained until 1914, editing the German Export Review, studying music at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he wrote the opera Winona, which concerns the love between a U.S. army officer and a Native American woman, Winona. and participating in the Social Democratic Party. Returning to the US just before World War I, Amter rejoined the Socialist Party in 1917 and was a professional musician in New York until joining the communist movement in 1919. For several years he was a leading advocate of an underground party and used the pseudonym J. Ford, and held a leading post in the Friends of the Soviet Union. After he was won over to a fully legal movement, Amter held various Party jobs, including district organizer in Chicago and Cleveland, and served as American representative to the Comintern from 1923-25. Sadie Van Veen Amter (1882-1968), a communist activist in her own right, met Israel in 1900 after hearing a piano concert of his and married him two years later.
From the guide to the Israel and Sadie Amter Autobiographical Typescript, undated, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
