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Burning Valley
''Burning Valley'' is a 1953 coming-of-age novel by the American writer Phillip Bonosky set in the steel valley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the 1920s. It was originally published in the Communist Party publication ''Masses and Mainstream ''Masses & Mainstream'', published from 1948 to 1963, was an American Marxist monthly publication. It resulted from a merger between ''New Masses'', which ceased publication in January 1948, and ''Mainstream'', a Communist cultural quarterly estab ...''. In 1998 it was reprinted as part of the series "The Radical Novel Reconsidered" by the University of Illinois Press. The novel tells the story of Benedict Bulmanis, son of an immigrant Lithuanian steelworker, who feels called to the Roman Catholic priesthood, but is torn by local political events as steelworkers struggle to organize in the face of corporate expansion. Banks and millowners plan to clear land in the Monongahela River Valley for a new steel mill, but it means forcing worke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phillip Bonosky
Phillip Bonosky (March 7, 1916 – March 2, 2013) was an American novelist, journalist, and labor activist. A lifelong Communist, he wrote the Bildungsroman, coming-of-age novel ''Burning Valley'' and worked as cultural editor and Moscow correspondent for the ''People's World, Daily World.'' Bonosky was one of the first U.S. journalists to visit communist China and one of the few to interview Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Background Bonosky was born in 1916 in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, the fourth of eight children, to Lithuanian people, Lithuanian immigrant parents. Early career As an adolescent he worked in the Duquesne Steel Works, but lost his job in the Great Depression and left home to find work. Norman Markowitz writes, "Bonosky joined large numbers of unemployed youth to ride the rails in the early 1930s, and eventually found himself in Washington, DC, living in a warehouse for transients that the early Roosevelt administration had provided." Social acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proletarian Literature
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is therefore often published by the Communist Party or left wing sympathizers, the proletarian novel has also been categorized without any emphasis on revolution, as a novel "about the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". This different emphasis may reflect a difference between Russian, American and other traditions of working-class writing, with that of Britain. The British tradition was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement, and socialism, amongst others. Furthermore, writing about the British working-class writers, H Gustav Klaus, in ''The Socialist Novel: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition'' (1982) suggested that "the once current er ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masses & Mainstream
''Masses & Mainstream'', published from 1948 to 1963, was an American Marxist monthly publication. It resulted from a merger between ''New Masses'', which ceased publication in January 1948, and ''Mainstream'', a Communist cultural quarterly established the previous year. It was headquartered in New York City. ''Masses & Mainstream'' was edited by Samuel Sillen. Although most of its best-known contributors had written for ''New Masses'' before the war, the magazine gave a platform to some younger writers, including Howard Fast, Thomas McGrath, Eve Merriam, Lloyd L. Brown and Phillip Bonosky. The magazine had a circulation of 17,000 in 1948, but steadily lost subscribers through the McCarthy era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina .... References Communist period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words ("education", alternatively "forming") and ("novel"). Origin The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905. The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term ''coming-of-age novel'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Bildungsroman'', but its use is usually wider and less technical. The birth of the Bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of ''Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1795–96, or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east. Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the nation with over 13 million residents as of 2020. It is the 33rd-largest state by area and ranks ninth among all states in population density. The southeastern Delaware Valley metropolitan area comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth most populous city. Another 2.37 million reside in Greater Pittsburgh in the southwest, centered around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest and Western Pennsylvania's largest city. The state's su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masses And Mainstream
''Masses & Mainstream'', published from 1948 to 1963, was an American Marxist monthly publication. It resulted from a merger between ''New Masses'', which ceased publication in January 1948, and ''Mainstream'', a Communist cultural quarterly established the previous year. It was headquartered in New York City. ''Masses & Mainstream'' was edited by Samuel Sillen. Although most of its best-known contributors had written for ''New Masses'' before the war, the magazine gave a platform to some younger writers, including Howard Fast, Thomas McGrath, Eve Merriam, Lloyd L. Brown and Phillip Bonosky. The magazine had a circulation of 17,000 in 1948, but steadily lost subscribers through the McCarthy era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina .... References Communist pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Wald
Alan Maynard Wald (born June 1, 1946) is an American professor emeritus of English Literature and American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and writer of 20th-century American literature who focuses on Communist writers; he is an expert on the American 20th-Century "Literary Left." Background Wald was born in Washington, DC. His parents were Haskell Philip Wald, an economist with the Federal Government and Federal Reserve Bank, and Ruth Jacobs, a special education teacher. In 1969, he received a BA in Literature from Antioch College. In 1971, he received an MA and, in 1974, a doctorate, both in English from the University of California at Berkeley. Frederick C. Crews directed his doctoral dissertation. Career Professor Wald taught English Literature and American Culture for four full decades. In 1974, he became a lecturer at San Jose State University. In 1975, he became an associate in English at his alma mater, the University of California at Berk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monongahela River
The Monongahela River ( , )—often referred to locally as the Mon ()—is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in North Central West Virginia, north-central West Virginia and Greater Pittsburgh, Southwestern Pennsylvania. The river flows from the confluence of its west and east forks in north-central West Virginia northeasterly into southwestern Pennsylvania, then northerly to Pittsburgh and its confluence with the Allegheny River to form the Ohio River. The river's entire length is navigable via a series of locks and dams. Etymology The Unami language, Unami word ''Monongahela'' means "falling banks", in reference to the geological instability of the river's banks. Moravian Church, Moravian missionary David Zeisberger (1721–1808) gave this account of the naming: "In the Lenape language, Indian tongue the name of this river was ''Mechmenawungihilla'' (alter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 American Novels
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia. ** The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the Unidentified flying object, UFO phenomenon. * January 15 – Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into ''I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record has yet to be broken. * January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is First inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Upr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels About Communism
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
