Politics and the Intellectual: Conversations with Irving Howe

Chronology

xv Chronology 1920 Irving Arthur Horenstein, who later adopted the name Irving Howe (IH) is born on June 11, at 139th Street in the Bronx, New York City, a Yiddish-speaking neighborhood, to David and Nettie (Goldman) Horenstein. 1922 IH’s father and mother, both of whom were born in Russia, are naturalized as U.S. citizens. 1930 The family’s grocery store in the West Bronx goes bankrupt. David Horenstein works as a peddler and later as a presser in a dress factory. Nettie Horenstein also works in the dress trade as a machine operator. 1935 IH reads Edmund Wilson’s Axel’s Castle and first encounters literary criticism and history. 1936 IH graduates from DeWitt Clinton High School in June and matriculates to City College of New York in September. IH majors in English at CCNY, spending most of his college • days in the CCNY cafeteria, in Alcove 1, which he later calls “the home of heresy, left sectarianism, independent thought, and sheer fanaticism and intolerance.” Alcove 1 houses the Trotskyist students , consisting of approximately fifty CCNY members. Alcove 2 is occupied by the pro-Stalinist Left, which numbers roughly four hundred students. Other members of Alcove 1 included Irving Kristol, Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and Melvin J. Lasky. 1938 The CCNY Trotskyists organize “a strike against imperialist war,” which features a rally led by James Burnham, James Farrell, and Sidney Hook. IH edits a mimeographed publication, • The CCNY Red Book. IH becomes widely regarded as Max Shachtman’s most promising • protégé. IH joins and remains in the Socialist Workers Party until 1940. • xvi 1939 Officially registered at CCNY under the name Horenstein, IH begins to use the Trotskyist party name of “Hugh Ivan.” He also acquires the nickname of “Fangs” because of his zest for polemics. The pseudonym conveniently resembles one of his party names, R. Fangston, which he was dubbed by a comrade because of his protruding eyeteeth. (These were later filed down.) 1940 IH is elected as member of the National Executive Board of the Young People’s Socialist League. IH, along with classmate Irving Kristol, graduates from City Col- • lege of New York with a B.S. in social science. (He graduates as Irving Horenstein but uses the name Irving Howe for speeches and articles.) In the spring, a faction led by Max Shachtman, and including IH, • splits from the Socialist Workers Party to form the Workers Party. (Shachtman had been one of the chief lieutenants of James Cannon , whose Socialist Workers Party had a membership of 645; Max Shachtman’s Workers Party membership was slightly smaller.) 1941 On June 15, IH marries Anna Bader in the Bronx, the first of his four marriages . The couple resides in Greenwich Village. In early December, IH becomes managing editor, under Emanuel • Garrett (pseudonym of Emanuel Geltman), of the Workers Party weekly, Labor Action. Later the same month he becomes editor, continuing in this position until drafted into the army in mid-1942. 1942 IH is inducted into the U.S. Army on July 27, at Fort Dix, New Jersey (army serial no. 32-404-986), thus beginning a term of military service that lasts about three and a half years. 1946 On January 18, at Fort Dix, IH is honorably discharged from the U.S. Army with the rank of corporal, having held the position of clerk in the enlistment center at Camp Upton, New York. Following his release from the army, he moves back to the Bronx. In the spring, IH contributes to the journals • politics, edited by Dwight Macdonald, and Tomorrow. Writing for politics using the pseudonym Theodore Dryden, IH is hired as a part-time assistant to Macdonald for $15 per week. In November, IH begins contributing to • Partisan Review. His first review is of a collection of stories by Sholom Aleichem translated from the Yiddish, The Old Country. 1947 On April 12, IH marries Thalia Phillies, an archeologist from Buffalo, New York, who is doing graduate studies at Columbia University. xvii 1948 In the spring, IH writes a full-page article in the journal Labor Action, reacting with despair to the Stalinist takeover of Czechoslovakia. After this time, he confines his contributions to the theoretical magazine New International. IH moves to Princeton in September, when his wife gets a job • teaching Greek and Latin at Miss Fine’s Day School, a private school for girls. During...