Left Front (magazine)
{{Short description|American magazine}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2013}}
{{italic title}}
{{Other uses|Left Front (disambiguation){{!}}Left Front}}
Left Front Magazine (1933-1935) was an American magazine published by the Chicago chapter of the John Reed Club,{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: John Reed Club
| publisher = George Washington University
| url = http://home.gwu.edu/~cuff/wright/organizations/johnreedclub.html
| accessdate = May 30, 2010
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100610090842/http://home.gwu.edu/~cuff/wright/organizations/johnreedclub.html
| archive-date = June 10, 2010
| url-status = dead
}} itself a Marxist club for writers, artists, and intellectuals, named after the American journalist, activist, and poet, John Reed. The magazine is most famous for being a major early publishing venue of American author Richard Wright.
Richard Wright
In 1933, Richard Wright joined the Chicago chapter of the John Reed Club at the urging of friend Abraham Aaron.
{{cite book
| last = Wright
| first = Richard
| title = Native Son
| publisher = Harper & Brothers
| year = 1940
| pages = 468
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BHQciEOsIxoC&pg=PA468| isbn = 9780060929800
}} The same year, he is elected executive secretary of the chapter{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: Chronology 1931–1935
| publisher = George Washington University
| url = http://home.gwu.edu/~cuff/wright/chronology/1931_1935.html#1934
| accessdate = May 31, 2010
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070701181643/http://home.gwu.edu/~cuff/wright/chronology/1931_1935.html#1934
| archive-date = July 1, 2007
| url-status = dead
}} and founded Left Front.{{cite journal|author=John Logie|title=We Write for the Workers: Authorship and Communism in Kenneth Burke and Richard Wright|journal=K. B. Journal|date=2005|volume=1|issue=2|url=http://kbjournal.org/logie}} By early 1934, Wright began writing poetry for the chapter's magazine, Left Front.{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright
| publisher = University of North Carolina: All American encyclopedia
| url = http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/1914-/lit/wright.htm
| accessdate = May 30, 2010
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100613025158/http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/1914-/lit/wright.htm
| archive-date = June 13, 2010
| url-status = dead
{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: Chronology
| publisher = University of Illinois at Champlain: Modern American Poetry
| url = http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/chronology.htm
| accessdate = May 30, 2010}} He published poems "A Red Love Note" and "Rest for the Weary" in the January–February 1934 issue
{{cite web
| title = On Richard Wright's Poetry
| publisher = University of Illinois at Champlain: Modern American Poetry
| url = http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/about.htm
| accessdate = May 31, 2010}} and became co-editor of the magazine at the same time.
{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: Life
| publisher = University of Illinois at Champlain: Modern American Poetry
| url = http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/wright_life.htm
| accessdate = May 30, 2010}} "Everywhere Burning Waters Rise" appeared in the May–June 1934 issue of Left Front.{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: Chronology
| publisher = Independent Television Service
| url = http://archive.itvs.org/richardwright/biblio.html
| accessdate = May 31, 2010
}}{{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
{{cite web
| title = Richard Wright: Primary (Poetry and Secondary Source Bibliographies
| publisher = University of Illinois at Champlain: Modern American Poetry
| url = http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/r_wright/biblios.htm
| accessdate = May 31, 2010}}
Demise
While some sources say the CPUSA shut down the magazine in 1935,
{{cite web
| title = Richard N. Wright
| publisher = Visit Natchez
| url = http://www.visitnatchez.com/custom/webpage2.cfm?content=News&id=74&Cat=africanamericanheritage
| accessdate = May 31, 2010}} its demise most likely came in August 1934 during a Midwest Writers Congress, when publisher Alexander Trachtenberg proposed replacement of the John Reed Club with a new (i.e., Party-sanctioned) organization called the First American Writers Congress.
{{cite book
| last = Ward
| first = Jerry Washington
| title = The Richard Wright Encyclopedia
| publisher = [Greenwood Press]
| year = 2008
| isbn = 978-0-313-31239-7
| page = 137
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=WlQ0SS4XEYYC&dq=richard+wright&pg=PA318
| accessdate = May 31, 2010}}
See also
- New Masses: magazine associated with the John Reed Club's New York chapter
- Daily Worker: newspaper published by the CPUSA from headquarters in Chicago
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.nathanielturner.com/itriedtobeacommunist.htm Partial text of "I Tried to be a Communist", by Richard Wright]
- [http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300092202 Yale University Press]: Artists on the Left by [https://web.archive.org/web/20100510160746/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/art-history/staff/andrew_hemingway Andrew Hemingway]
{{Authority control}}
Category:Communist periodicals published in the United States
Category:Defunct political magazines published in the United States
Category:Communist Party USA publications
Category:Magazines established in 1933
Category:Magazines disestablished in 1935
Category:Magazines published in Chicago
Category:1933 establishments in Illinois
Category:1935 disestablishments in Illinois
Category:Communism in Illinois
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