Jessica Smith (November 29, 1895–October 17, 1983) was an American editor and activist and was the wife of
Harold Ware
Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture.
He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...
and subsequently
John Abt
John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gr ...
, both members of the
Ware Group
The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...
run by
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
and whose members also included
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
.
[
][
]
Background
Jessica Granville-Smith was born on November 29, 1895, in
Madison, New Jersey
Madison is a borough in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 16,937.
Located along the Morris & Essex Lines, it is noted for Madison's historic railroad station becoming one ...
, the daughter of painter
Walter Granville-Smith
Walter Granville-Smith (1870–1938) was an illustrator and painter who was born in South Granville, New York on January 28, 1870. He is notable for producing the first colored illustration that appeared in the United States. Granville-Smith and hi ...
of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Jessica Granville-Smith (as she was known in her early life), graduated from
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
.
Career
In 1922, she traveled to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
with a
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
Mission on behalf of a Quaker famine relief effort, the
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (''Quaker'') founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by Am ...
. She was a relief worker there herself.
In Moscow she met
Harold Ware
Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture.
He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...
, an agricultural expert and socialist. They tried to establish a model
collective farm
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...
in the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
using American tractors. They returned New York by January 1925.
[
]
Ware returned to Moscow for a time, while Smith remained in the United States to become editor of ''
Soviet Russia Today'', a publication of the organization
Friends of Soviet Russia
The Friends of Soviet Russia (FSR) was formally established in the United States on August 9, 1921 as an offshoot of the American Labor Alliance for Trade Relations with Soviet Russia (ALA). It was launched as a "mass organization" dedicated to r ...
. She held the position for more than twenty years. Her editorial board included American communist writer
Myra Page
Dorothy Markey (born Dorothy Page Gary, 1897–1993), known by the pen name Myra Page, was a 20th-century American communist writer, journalist, union activist, and teacher.
Background
Page was born Dorothy Page Gary on October 1, 1897, ...
.
[
]
In 1943, she became a co-founder of
National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
, where she also served as vice president and a member of its national advisory council.
Later, she served as editor of the ''
New World Review'' for some years.
Ware Group
Hal Ware founded the
Ware Group
The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...
in the early 1930s and held the first meeting late in 1933.
In September 1939,
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...
mentioned Smith in connection with Abt to
Adolf Berle
Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of ''The Modern Corporation and Private Property'', a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a prof ...
.
[
]
Personal and death
While in Moscow in the early 1920s, Smith met
Harold Ware
Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture.
He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...
, an agricultural expert and socialist. In 1925, they were married in New York by
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Early years
Thomas was the ...
. They had one child, David Ware. In 1935, Ware died in an automobile accident.
In 1937, Smith married
John Abt
John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gr ...
, a member of the
Ware Group
The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...
.
Smith died in 1983; Abt died in 1991.
She had a "deep commitment to American-Soviet friendship... continuously demonstrated by staunch support of the program of the National Council." She "dedicated her long life to US-USSR friendship and peace."
She also championed
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
.
Works
Smith worked on many books and article in her life.
Books written or co-written:
*
Woman in Soviet Russia' (1928)
* ''Over the North Pole'' by Georgiĭ Baĭdukov and Jessica Smith (1938)
*
People Come First' (1948)
* ''Jungle Law or Human Reason? The North Atlantic Pact and What It Means to You'' (1949)
*
The American People Want Peace: A Survey of Public Opinion' (New York: SRT Publications, 1955)
* ''Hungary in Travail'' (1956)
*
Soviet Democracy, and How It Works' (New York: National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, 1969)
*
Building a New Society : The 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union' (1976)
Books edited or co-edited:
*
War and Peace in Finland: A Documented Survey', edited by Alter Brody, Theodore M. Bayer, Isidor Schneider, Jessica Smith (New York : Soviet Russia Today, 1940)
* ''The U.S.S.R. and World Peace'', edited by Jessica Smith (1949)
*
Lenin's Impact on the United States', edited by Daniel Mason, Jessica Smith, David Laibman (1970)
*
Voices of Tomorrow: The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union', edited by Jessica Smith (New York, NWR Publications, 1971)
See also
*
Harold Ware
Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture.
He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a S ...
*
John Abt
John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Gr ...
*
Ware Group
The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...
References
External links
''Soviet democracy, and how it works.''All photos from
Sovfoto
Sovfoto was established in 1932 as the only agency to represent Soviet photojournalism in America. It continues today as a commercial entity Sovfoto/Eastfoto. Collections from its archive are held also at MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Canada which ...
*Some of Jessica Smith's writings have been digitized and are available at th
In Her Own Right project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Jessica
1895 births
1983 deaths
American women journalists
Swarthmore College alumni
Members of the Communist Party USA
American communists