Daniel Harris Manuscripts
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Abstract
Daniel Harris (born Daniel Horwitz), 1903-1987, came to the United States illegally through Cuba after a series of stratagems to escape Russian Lithuania in 1923. He worked as a Communist Party of the United States of America organizer briefly in Harlem while he lived in a Lower East Side rooming house and looked for construction work. This collection contains a clippings notebook of Harris's novella "Going East," typescript copies of two unpublished novellas ("The Blue-Eyed Boy" and "The Comeback"), a full-length unpublished novel, "A Testimony for Sweeney" and a typescript for "Kitty: A Story." The collection also includes an annotated essay guide to the collection written by his daughter Laura Hapke.
Historical/Biographical Note
Daniel Harris (born Daniel Horwitz), 1903-1987, came to the United States illegally through Cuba after a series of stratagems to escape Russian Lithuania in 1923. He worked as a Communist Party of the United States of America organizer briefly in Harlem while he lived in a Lower East Side rooming house and looked for construction work. At some point he apprenticed as a pipefitter, despite an unofficial anti-ethnic bar. He was one of the few "proletarian worker-writers" in the Communist Party's John Reed Club. With the help of Party regulars, he soon published a novella, "Going East," in the Daily Worker Sunday Supplement (August 22-September 14, 1934). He was acquainted with Mike Gold and (then leftist) Philip Rahv. Always a Trotskyist, he shaken by the Moscow Trials and the death of Leon Trotsky. He broke with the Stalinists after he became critical of Party orthodoxy. From the mid-1940s onward, he was active in the Brotherhood of Plumbers and Pipefitters, Local Union No. 2, AFL-CIO. At some point in the war years, rewarded after a stateside army stint and having changed his name to Harris, he became a naturalized citizen.
Scope and Contents
This collection contains a clippings notebook of Daniel Harris's (aka Daniel Horowitz) novella "Going East," typescript copies of two unpublished novellas ("The Blue-Eyed Boy" and "The Comeback"), a full-length unpublished novel, "A Testimony for Sweeney" and a typescript for "Kitty: A Story." The collection also includes an annotated essay guide to the collection written by his daughter Laura Hapke.
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Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (and related rights to publicity and privacy) to materials in this collection, created by Daniel Harris, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Daniel Harris Manuscripts; TAM 405; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Laura Hapke in 2007. The accession number associated with this gift is 2007.020.
