Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937-1942

Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1994. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. x, 376 p. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Days of Anger, Days of Hope is the memoir of one of the most important organizations of writers in the history of American literature. Franklin Folsom, executive secretary to the League of American Writers for five of its seven years of often controversial activity, brings to life a time when writers became aware of the threats of fascism, and recalls vigorous efforts of many of this country's best writers to rescue from European concentration camps their anti-Nazi colleagues. Founded during the tense, pre-war period of the 1930s, the League sought to promote intellectual and political freedom worldwide. At its peak, it had more than eight hundred members, including many of the most important literary personalities of this century, with whom Folsom had personal dealings: Theodore Dreiser, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Ernest Hemmingway, Richard Wright, Malcolm Cowley, Ring Lardner, Jr., Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Dorothy Parker, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Dalton Trumbo, and William Carlos Williams, among many others. This lively history of the League of American Writers provides a unique insider's account of the group's wide-ranging activities, including the organization of four national writers congresses, the establishment of schools for writers, and campaigning for the rights of African Americans, the foreign-born, and labor. No book offers more information about the internal conflicts and external pressures that preceded the demise of the League, which the FBI considered one of the most successful of what it called "Communist front organizations". Folsom has deftly woven his personal anecdotes and writings with League records and FBIfiles to create an engrossing portrait of the organization, its members, and its role during a crucial period in American cultural and social history.