Benjamin Iceland Papers
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
Ben Iceland (1910-1990) fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. In civilian life he found work as a social worker, farmer and, finally, as a high-school teacher of Latin. Iceland was an active member of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) and edited VALB's newsletter, the Volunteer, for eight years. This collection contains correspondence written while Iceland was in Spain and memoirs of his participation in the Spanish Civil War. It also contains correspondence and subject files, most from the 1980s, related to VALB and the Volunteer.
Historical/Biographical Note
Ben Iceland (1910-1990), son of the Yiddish poet Rueben Iceland, was born on New York's Lower East Side and raised in the Bronx. Iceland graduated from New York University in 1933 with a degree in classics. Upon graduation he held a series of makeshift jobs, everything from shoveling snow to working as a theater usher, until taking a position in 1934 with New York City's Home Relief Bureau, the forerunner of the Welfare Department. Once he landed a steady job, Iceland married Claire Brown, a union organizer.
In 1937, Iceland, against the wishes of his wife and unbeknownst to his mother, joined the International Brigades. During the Spanish Civil War he was a machine-gunner with the Czech and John Brown anti-aircraft batteries, and he was among the last American volunteers to leave Spain. Upon his return from Spain, Iceland, a member of the Communist Party from the mid-1930s, rejoined the city's Welfare Department. When his membership in the Communist Party was exposed, however, he lost his job. By the early 1940s Iceland's marriage had ended. When World War II broke out, Iceland joined the United States Army, and spent the war years on duty in California. After the war Iceland took a job helping displaced European Jews find work and housing, and he worked briefly as a union organizer. Finding himself increasingly under investigation by the FBI, Iceland bought a farm outside Albany, and took up farming near Frank "Ski" Buturla, a friend from the Spanish Civil War. In 1962, after having obtained a graduate degree, Iceland moved to New Jersey and taught Latin in a local high school until he retired in 1976. Iceland had by this time remarried. His second wife, Marianne, was a native of Vienna.
Iceland was an active member of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB). In 1982 Manny Harriman, then retiring as editor of the Volunteer, VALB's newsletter, tapped Iceland to become the next editor thus moving editorial functions of the Volunteer from the West Coast to the East. Changing the location of the Volunteer's editorial board was only one of many VALB controversies over which Iceland would preside as editor. Iceland served as editor of the Volunteer from 1982 until shortly before his death in 1990.
Arrangement
This collection has been organized into 3 series:
The materials are arranged alphabetically within each series.
Missing Title
- Series I: Spanish Civil War, 1977-1990
- Series II: Correspondence, 1976-1996
- Series III: Subject Files, 1937-1940
The materials are arranged alphabetically within each series. This collection has been organized into 3 series:
Scope and Contents
This collection contains Iceland's letters from Spain to Claire Brown Iceland, and several chapter-length typescript accounts of his Spanish Civil War experiences. Much of the collection consists of correspondence, articles, clippings, VALB reports and memos, and other materials related to Iceland's tenure as editor. The last box of the collection houses Iceland's unpublished translation of Virgil's Aeneid.
Subjects
People
Access Restrictions
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives for more information and to schedule an appointment, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Use Restrictions
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder. For more information, please contact the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu or 212-998-2630.
Provenance
The Ben Iceland Collection was donated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives by Marianne Iceland in 1995. This collection came to New York University in January 2001 as part of the original acquisition of ALBA collections, formerly housed at Brandeis University.
Separated Materials
Photographs from the Ben Iceland Collection have been transferred to the Non-Print section of the ALBA collection in the Tamiment Library.
About this Guide
Repository
Series I: Spanish Civil War Era, 1937-1940
Scope and Content Note
This series consists of correspondence, mostly from Ben Iceland to his wife, Claire Brown Iceland; Iceland's English-Spanish grammar book; photocopies of documents relating to Iceland's time in Spain; and photocopied typescripts of Iceland's memoirs of the Spanish Civil War.
Biographical, Undated
Iceland, Ben to Claire Brown Iceland, 1937
Iceland, Ben to Claire Brown Iceland, March-July 1938
Iceland, Ben to Claire Brown Iceland, August, 1938
Iceland, Ben to Claire Brown Iceland, September-October 1938
Iceland, Ben to Rueben (Rubin) Iceland, 1938
Lossowski, Vincent et al: "The Gypsy's Curse", Undated
Postcard: photograph of last Americans leaving Spain, Undated
Publication: "English-Spanish Grammar", 1938
Repatriation: List, December 1938
Sailing Announcement, 1937
Writings: "Alamansa", 1939
Writings: "Anniversary", 1940
Writings: "The Big Retreat", 1939
Writings: "Early Days in Spain", 1939
Writings: "Last Months in Spain", Undated
Writings: "Teruel", 1939
Writings: "A Train is Bombed", 1939
Series II: Correspondence, 1976-1996
Scope and Content Note
The bulk of the correspondence (1982-1990) is from fellow veterans of the Spanish Civil War, and is related to Iceland's tenure as editor of the Volunteer. Many letters expand on controversies within VALB, or comment on articles and reviews published in the Volunteer. Subjects include contemporary issues such as the war in Nicaragua and proliferation of nuclear arms; the selection of material for the anthology, Our Fight, edited by Alvah Bessie and Albert Prago; as well as subjects related to the Spanish Civil War. Communism and Socialism were perennial sources of debate. Many letters include reminiscences of the war in Spain.
The correspondence includes letters from more than fifty different persons; Victor Berch, Alvah Bessie, Irving Weissman and Milton Wolff are among the more prolific correspondents. A 1990 letter from Carl Geiser provides a lengthy description of his trip to Cuba. Notable, too, is the correspondence from Wilhelm "Willi" Schutt, a 1929 German immigrant to New York City who fought with the Lincoln Battalion in Spain. Schutt, denied entry to the United States after the Spanish Civil War, lived in England during World War II. After the war he moved to East Germany where he lived until his death.
Cards, Undated, 1977-1983, inclusive
General, Undated, 1976-1979, inclusive
General, 1980-1982, inclusive
General, 1983-1989
General, 1990-1996, inclusive
Amery, Alfred, Undated, 1983-1990
Bailey, Bill, 1982-1986, inclusive
Bender, Ed, 1983; 1986, inclusive
Berch, Victor, Undated, 1976-1990, inclusive
Bessie, Alvah and Sylviane, Undated, 1981-1987, inclusive
Carroll, Peter, 1986
Chase, Homer, 1983
Cogswell, Theodore, Undated, 1980-1987, inclusive
Colodny, Robert, 1972; 1987, inclusive
Colow, Maury, 1980-1983, inclusive
Doyle, Joe, Undated, 1982-1996, inclusive
Felsen, Milton, 1982-1990, inclusive
Fishman, Moe, Undated, 1977-1986, inclusive
Gandall, William (Bill), Undated, 1986-1987, inclusive
Gerlach, John, Undated, 1984
Geiser, Carl, 1981-1990, inclusive
Goldring, Benjamin, 1979-1983, inclusive
Grunblatt, Jacques, M.D., 1981-1990, inclusive
Harriman, Manny, Undated, 1982-1983, inclusive
Heisler, Gus, 1980-1982, inclusive
Hornstein, Claire Brown Iceland Hartford, 1976-1984, inclusive
Kaye, George, Undated, 1990
Kaufman, Sidney, Undated, 1982-1986, inclusive
Landis, Arthur H., Undated, 1984
Landing, Arthur Isaac, 1978-1989, inclusive
Levenson, Leonard, 1977-1988, inclusive
Lossowski, Vincent, 1978-1984, inclusive
MacLeod, Don, 1982-1984, inclusive
Martin, Fredicka, 1978; 1982, inclusive
Nusser, Charles, Undated, 1982-1986, inclusive
Nelson, Steve, Undated, 1976-1987, inclusive
Osheroff, Abe, Undated, 1982-1983, inclusive
Postek, Stanley, Undated, 1982-1983, inclusive
Parker, Max and Mary, Undated, 1983; 1989, inclusive
Pike, William, 1982-1983, inclusive
Prago, Albert, Undated, 1982-1989, inclusive
Reed, Robert, 1982-1983, 1990, inclusive
Rosenberg, Leo, Undated, 1987
Rosner, Hyman, Undated, 1980-1983, inclusive
Ross, Adolf, 1983
Schuetrum, Walter, 1980-1983, inclusive
Schutt, Wilhelm (Willi), 1982
Smorodin, Abe, Undated, 1985-1991, inclusive
Stamm, Morris, 1977-1983, inclusive
Steck, Robert, Undated, 1980-1984, inclusive
Tivin, Isadore (Izzy), 1982
Watt, George, 1987-1988, inclusive
Weissman, Irving, Undated, 1978-1982, inclusive
Wellman, Saul, Undated, 1977-1986, inclusive
Wisse, Ruth, 1988
Wolff, Milton, Undated, 1982-1987, inclusive
Series III: Subject Files, 1977-1990
Scope and Content Note
Most of the material in the subject files consists of documents related to VALB, on both the national and regional level, and the Volunteer. Correspondence, publicity material and documents about events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War are also well represented. Iceland's full-length translation of Virgil's Aeneid is included in the subject files.
