Red diapers : growing up in the communist left / edited by Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kaplan, Judy, 1949-

Shapiro, Linn.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communism--United States--History--20th century--Sources.

Communism.

Children and politics--History--20th century--Sources.

Children and politics.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xi unnumbered pages, 320 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [1998]

Summary:

Suckled on the milk of communism, stirred by the strains of the "Internationale", inspired by a vision of the collective future, red diaper babies occupy a unique place in American history.

Red Diapers is the first anthology of autobiographical writings by the children of American communists. These memoirs, short stories, and poems reflect the joys and perils of growing up in a subculture defined by its opposition to society's most deeply held values. How red diaper children have come to terms with their political inheritance is the theme of this compelling anthology.

Some contributors have fond memories of family activism, others recall the past with ambivalence or even pain. The authors range in age from their twenties to their eighties. Some, such as Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein and sixties activist Bettina Aptheker, are widely known themselves; some are the children of well-known American leftists, including Jeff Lawson, son of blacklisted screenwriter John Howard Lawson, and Robert Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. in disparate voices, the contributors elaborate on how their parents attempted to pass on to them the torch of radical politics.

Contents:

Memories from the twenties / Peggy Dennis

California girlhood / Lil Carlson

From red diapers to protest banners / Ruth Hunter

Daughter and granddaughter of the Finnish left / Sirkka Tuomi Holm

Passage to Siberia / Doris C. Kaplan

The teachings of Karl Marx for boys and girls infiltrates Alabama / Marge Frantz

An ordinary life / Jeff Lawson

The old red granny / Mindy Rinkewich

December 1947 / Marianne Ware

Commiebastid / Albert Vetere Lannon

Proletaria and me: a memoir in progress / Dorothy M. Zellner

Southern discomfort / Maxine Defelice

Red sisters of the bourgeoisie / Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall and Harriet Fraad

What did I know and when did I know it? / Sonia Jaffe Robbins

Black and red all over / Marylouise Patterson

When life was a party / Stephanie Allan

Memoir / Rachel Fast Ben-Avi

Excerpt from pledge of allegiance / Mark Lapin

What's red hot and what's not: circa 1950s / Norma Allen

American heritage / Nina Olff

The little red superego / Gilda Zwerman

Two poems / Gene Dennis

Excerpt from in my mother's house / Kim Chernin

Mistaken identities / David Wellman

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0252021614

0252067258

OCLC:

38281715