Rolfe, Edwin, 1909-1954

Edwin Rolfe, born Solomon Fishman, was a journalist, author, and Communist Party activist. During the 1930s he was employed by the "Daily Worker." In the spring of 1937, he joined the International Brigades. Once in Spain, he was assigned to edit the "Volunteer for Liberty," the English-language magazine of the volunteers, in Madrid until joining the troops in the field in the spring of 1938.

From the description of Edwin Rolfe photograph collection [graphic]. ca. 1937. (New York University, Group Batchload). WorldCat record id: 60951137

Rolfe was born Solomon Fishman to Russian Jewish parents. He spent the first few years of his life in Philadelphia before the family moved to New York City. His father was a socialist and an official of a union local in New York, who later became a member of the Lovestonite faction of the Communist Party. His mother was active in the birth-control movement, a supporter of the striking Paterson silk workers in 1913, and later a member of the Communist Party. During high school Fishman began using pen names; the name Edwin Rolfe appears on some of his publications in the 1920s.

Rolfe joined the Communist Party in 1925 when he was 15 and was assigned to the Young Communist League. He published his first poem, "The Ballad of the Subway Digger," in the Daily Worker in 1927. He quit the Party in 1929 and moved from New York City to Madison, Wisconsin, to enroll in the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He spent his time writing non-political poems between 1929 and 1930 and in 1932 was published in Pagany . He left the university during his second year and rejoined the Party in New York City. After a variety of temporary jobs he began working full time at the Daily Worker. Rolfe published To My Contemporaries, his first book of poetry, in 1936, the same year he married Mary Wolfe. A few months later the Spanish Civil War began. After the Comintern began organizing international volunteers to help defend the Spanish Republic, Rolfe joined the International Brigades in the spring of 1937. Once in Spain he was assigned to edit the Volunteer for Liberty, the English-language magazine of the volunteers, in Madrid until joining the troops in the field in the spring of 1938. Rolfe's wife Mary joined him in Barcelona that fall.

In January of 1939, the Rolfe's returned to the United States where the Spanish cause was already under attack. Martin Dies began congressional hearings on Communist activity and the volunteers who fought in Spain, as well as their supporters, were immediate suspects. Rolfe's brother Bern Fishman, a federal employee who had raised money for the fledgling Spanish Republic came under scrutiny and Milt Wolff was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. While government harassment of the Lincoln Brigade veterans commenced, Random House published Rolfe's, The Lincoln Battalion, in 1939. He subsequently worked for the Soviet news agency TASS until he was drafted in 1943. Mary moved to Los Angeles and Rolfe joined her after the war where he published a mystery novel ( The Glass Room ) and found occasional work on the fringes of the film industry. He was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 and continued to be active in the struggle against McCarthyism until his death, by heart attack, in 1954.

Rolfe accrued the images in this collection in the course of his work as a journalist for the Volunteer for Liberty and the Daily Worker .

From the guide to the Edwin Rolfe Photographs, circa 1937, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)