Gallagher, Dorothy

Dorothy Gallagher (nee Rosenbloom), was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents from Ukraine who were devoted members of the Communist Party. A New York-based writer, Gallagher began her career as features editor for Redbook magazine. She then became a freelance writer, publishing in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and Grand Street. She is the author of three books: Hannah’s Daughters: Six Generations of an American Family, 1876-1976 (1976), All the Right Enemies: The Life and Murder of Carlo Tresca (1988), How I Came into My Inheritance: And Other True Stories (2001), and Strangers in the House: Life Stories (2006).

Often described as a “freelance revolutionary,” Carlo Tresca (1879-1943) was one of the most compelling and colorful figures of the American left prior to World War II. A newspaper editor, labor organizer, civil libertarian, anarchist, anti-Fascist and anti-Stalinist, Tresca had absorbed his fiery socialist principles and had been active as a trade-unionist and editor in his native Abruzzi before immigrating to the United States in 1904.

After joining the International Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912, Tresca was involved in a number of strikes, including the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike (1912), the New York City hotel workers' strike (1913), the Paterson silk strike (1913), and the Mesabi Range, Minnesota, miners’ strike (1916). He edited a newspaper called L’Avvenire (The Future), first in Pennsylvania and, from 1913, in New York City. Its successor, from 1917, was Il Martello (The Hammer). Tresca’s uncompromising anarcho-syndicalist views resulted in frequent clashes with local and federal authorities, and repeated confiscation of his publications.

He devoted considerable energy to campaigning on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s and also became preoccupied with the struggle against fascism. Pursued by the U. S. government at the behest of the Mussolini regime, he survived several assassination attempts by fascist supporters. The Spanish Civil War intensified his anti-Communist activity and propaganda, earning him more enemies on the American left.

On the evening of January 11, 1943, Tresca was shot to death on the sidewalk in front of his office at Fifth Avenue and 15th Street. Over the years there has been a lively debate about which of Tresca’s many enemies might have been behind the murder. His murder was never prosecuted.

Sources:

From the guide to the Carlo Tresca: Dorothy Gallagher Research Files, 1917-1988, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)