Oliver Carlson

Oliver Carlson was born on July 31, 1899, in Gotland, Sweden. In 1919, he was a member of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. He studied law for one year at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

{{cite web|first = Tim|last = Davenport|title = OLIVER CARLSON not JOHN EDWARDS (Davenport)|publisher = H-NET HOAC|url = http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-HOAC&month=0605&week=d&msg=tJJSjNuUxP2fUU6NFxK/tQ&user=&pw=|date = 23 May 2016|access-date = 30 October 2018}}

In 1914, Carlson joined the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) while living in the Muskegon and Detroit, Michigan, areas. During 1918–1919, Carlson served as YPSL national secretary.

After the Communist Party formed in 1919 in the US, Carlson became a communist. During winter 1920–1921, Carlson (as "H. Edwards") attended a second convention of the United Communist Party in Kingston, New York, which voted to establish the "Young People's Communist League." In April 1921, he attended a congress in Germany of the Young Communist International, where he received funding. The meeting then moved to Moscow, which Carlson (as "Tucker") attended.

In January 1922, as the Workers Party of America formed, the Party agreed to found a National Organizing Committee (NOC) for the Young Workers League of America (YWL), with Carlson as secretary. The group started a second publication called Youth, soon changed to The Young Worker with Carlson as both YWLA secretary and Young Worker editor, Martin Abern as secretary, and Harry Gannes as business manager. In May 1922, the Young Communist League of America (YCLA) formed at an underground gathering, to which Max Bedacht spoke. The group published Young Communist quarterly during 1922. In July 1922, Carlson visited to comrades in Gary, Indiana.{{cite journal|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = New Internationalism|publisher = Young Worker|url = https://archive.org/details/YoungWorker-Vol1-No5/page/n5|pages = 2 (Gary), 7–8 (article)|date = August–September 1922|access-date = 29 October 2018}}

In January 1924, Carlson, now ex-editor, gauged circulation of the Young Worker at 7-8,000 copies per issue. After attending the 4th world congress of the Young Communist International, leadership shuffled, with three secretaries (John Williamson, Martin Abern, and Carlson), Max Shachtman as editor, and Abern and Carlson as heads of the education department (among other positions).

In 1925, Carlson became head of Communist Summer Schools, sponsored by the Workers Party of America. During summer 1926, the Young Workers League of America (YWL) ran several pioneer camps and summer schools: Chicago, Waino, Wisconsin; Waukegan, Illinois, and Winchedon, Massachusetts. During Summer 1927, the YWL ran four schools in Boston, a town in Ohio, Waino, and Winlock, Washington. Carlson directed the Winlock school. During 1928, Carlson directed a YWL school in Woodland, Washington.{{cite web| title = A Brief History of Youth Leagues in the American Communist Movement| publisher = League of Young Communists USA| url = http://www.leagueofyoungcommunistsusa.org/a-brief-history-of-youth-leagues-in-the-american-communist-movement/| date = 15 January 2018| access-date = 29 October 2018}}

In 1928–29, Carlson joined the Communist League of America (CLA), headed by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman, and Martin Abern. CLA members had been expelled from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism as "Cannonites." He was one of the CLA "Musteites," other being Louis F. Budenz, Arnold Johnson, J.B.S. Hardman, and Benjamin Mandel.

{{cite book| editor1 = Paul Le Blanc| editor2 = Alan M. Wald| editor2-link = Alan M. Wald| editor3 = George Breitman| title = Trotskyism in the United States: Historical Essays and Reconsiderations| publisher = Haymarket Books| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=n0G7DQAAQBAJ| date = 1 December 2016| access-date = 29 October 2018| isbn = 9781608467532}} By late 1931, Carlson was out and seeking readmission to the CLA: he would not gain re-admittance.{{cite thesis| first = Nicolas Dylan| last = Boorman| title = American Trotskyism and the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party from Origins to 1936| publisher = San Francisco State University| url = https://sfsu-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/196009/AS362017HISTB66.pdf| pages = 55| date = 15 April 2015| access-date = 29 October 2018}} (In 1934, the CLA folded into A.J. Muste's American Workers Party to form the Workers Party of the United States.)

In 1930, Carlson taught political science department at the University of Chicago, where "I made a special study of the propaganda techniques of the Communist movement both abroad and in this country."

During 1939–1940, he studied "the problem of Communism" in the state of California, which he published as A Mirror for Californians in 1941. According to Carlson in 1947, "has a good deal of information about the Communist movement in California, and in one chapter dealing with Hollywood I devote a part of that chapter to a discussion of the Communist infiltration in Hollywood up to that time." Carlson then read several pages from a chapter in the book called "There Is No Town Called Hollywood." (A May 1941 review in The New York Times reports that the book focuses on four main actors in California history: Denis Kearney, Hiram Johnson, Upton Sinclair, and Francis Townsend and also discusses Harry Bridges.{{cite news|first = R.L.|last = Duffus|title = The State of Infinite Contrasts|work = The New York Times|url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/05/11/85339248.pdf|page = 18|date = 11 May 1941|access-date = 29 October 2018}})

As early as 1944, Carlson's name appears among others listed by the Legislature of the State California as "friendly witnesses". Others include Earl Warren.{{cite book|title = The State of Infinite Contrasts|work = The New York Times|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=am1KAQAAMAAJ|pages = 1203|date = 9 April 1944|access-date = 29 October 2018| last1=Senate | first1=California. Legislature }}

On October 24, 1947, during hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Carlson described himself as a writer and teacher, residing in Los Angeles. He told the committee, "I specialize in the field of political science, more particularly in the field of propaganda techniques. I have worked in that field for about 20 years or more." He testified that the Communist Party had sent people from New York to "run" Hollywood. He named V.J. Jerome and Eli Jacobson. He described Jacobson in detail: New Yorker, "charter member of the Communist Party," and associated in Los Angeles of film director Beryl La Cava and magazine editor Kyle Crichton. In the mid-1920s, Jacobson was a director of the New York Workers School, whose teachers included: Alexander Trachtenberg, William Z. Foster, Jack Stachel, and William W. Weinstone.

Regarding communism and teaching, Carlson testified that William Wolfe of the ILGWU education department ran a People's Education Center, succeeded by Sidney Davison (sent from New York). Herbert Biberman taught there (Soviet theater), as did Guy Endore Robert Lees. Advisors included Lees, Lawson, Healey, Herbert Sorrell, Frank Tuttle, and Sondra Gorney.

{{cite book|first = Allan|last = Ryskind|title = Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters Ð Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler|publisher = Regnery|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=K4-pBQAAQBAJ|pages = 191–193 (Carlson), 234 (Davison)|date = 5 January 2015|access-date = 29 October 2018|isbn = 9781621572060}}

In 1985, Carlson was living in Carlsbad, California.

Mrs. Oliver Carlson was a sponsor of the Hollywood League of Women Shoppers, along with Frances Farmer, Lillian Hellman, Mrs. Boris Karloff, and others.

Oliver Carlson died aged 91 on March 4, 1991, in California.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}}

In addition to his works and congressional testimony, historian Harvey Klehr interviewed Carlson, available the Harvey Klehr Papers at Emory University.{{cite web|title = Harvey Klehr Papers, 1901-2004|publisher = Emory University|url=https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/klehr664/|date = 5 January 2015|accessdate = 29 October 2018}}

Articles:

• "The Road Before Us: Keynote Speech at the First National Convention of the Young Workers League, Brooklyn, NY" (May 13, 1922)

{{cite journal|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson

| title = Hearst: The Road Before Us: Keynote Speech at the First National Convention of the Young Workers League, Brooklyn, NY|journal = Young Worker|url = http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/ycl/1922/0513-carlson-roadbeforeus.pdf|date = June–July 1922|access-date = 29 October 2018}}

• "Our First National Convention" (May 1922)

{{cite journal|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = Our First National Convention|journal = Young Worker|url = http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/ycl/1922/0515-carlson-ourfirstnationalconv.pdf|date = June–July 1922| access-date = 29 October 2018}}

• "New Internationalism" (1922)
• "The Aims and Methods of Young Workers Education" (August 1927)

{{cite journal|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = The Aims and Methods of Young Workers Education|journal = Red Dawn|url = https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/ycl/1927/0800-carlson-education.pdf|date = 1927|access-date = 29 October 2018}}

• "Recollections of American Trotskyist Leaders" (1977)

{{cite journal|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = Recollections of American Trotskyist Leaders|journal = Studies in Comparative Communism|url = https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/studies-in-comparative-communism/vol/10/issue/1|pages = 161–164|date = 1977|volume = 10|issue = 1–2|doi = 10.1016/S0039-3592(77)80002-1|access-date = 29 October 2018|url-access = subscription}}

Pamphlets:

• Pamphlet series on Communism for Catholic Information Society (which also published Eugene Lyons, George S. Schuyler, William Henry Chamberlin, Richard Ginder, Hermann Borchhardt, Liston M. Oak, Aloysius Stepinac, Isaac Don Levine, Ralph de Toledano, Freda Utley, and Suzanne La Follette):
• Red Star Over Hollywood (1947)
• Radio in the Red (1947)
• Articles or pamphlets for Freeman:
• What Really Happened in Pasadena? (1951
• A Slanted Guide to Library Selections (January 14, 1952)

Books:

• Hearst: Lord of San Simeon with Ernest Sutherland Bates (1936)

{{cite book|first1 = Oliver|last1 = Carlson|author-link1 = Oliver Carlson|first2 = Ernest Sutherland |last2 = Bates|title = Hearst: Lord of San Simeon|publisher = Viking Press|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=arGGAAAAIAAJ|date = 1936| isbn=9780837128474 |access-date = 29 October 2018}}

• Brisbane: A Candid Biography (1937)
• A Mirror for Californians (1941){{cite book|first = Oliver|last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = A Mirror for Californians|publisher = Bobbs-Merrill|date = 1941}}
• Man Who Made news, James Gordon Bennett (1942)
• How to Get into Politics; The Art of Winning Elections with Aldrich Blake (1946)
• Handbook on Propaganda for the Alert Citizen (1953){{cite book|first = Oliver |last = Carlson|author-link = Oliver Carlson|title = Handbook on propaganda for the alert citizen|publisher = Studies of the Foundation for Social Research|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=HwrTAAAAMAAJ|date = 1953|access-date = 29 October 2018}}

• Martin Abern
• James P. Cannon
• Young Communist League of America
• Young Workers League

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/oliver-carlson-of-los-angeles-who-described-himself-as-a-news-photo/517393010 Getty images] Oliver Carlson (undated)
• [https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt7s2034vf/dsc/ Inventory of the Communism: myth vs. reality motion picture film]
• [http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/ypsl.html Early American Marxism - YPSL - Photo of Carlson (1919?)]

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Category:1899 births

Category:1991 deaths

Category:American Marxists

Category:Members of the Communist Party USA

Category:People from Gotland County

Category:Swedish emigrants to the United States