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7 unusual facts about Socialist Party of America


Carl Legien

In 1912, Legien gave a keynote address at the convention of the Socialist Party of America in Indianapolis which was credited with persuading the convention to reject the anarcho-syndicalist program of Bill Haywood.

David Dallin

(Founded in 1924 by the Socialist Party of America, The New Leader had come under executive editor Samuel Levitas, a Russian Menshevik, after which the magazine left the SPA but remained left.

LaisvÄ—

The privately-owned paper was originally associated with the American Lithuanian Socialist Union, forerunner of the Lithuanian Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party of America.

Sam Faubus

(October 24, 1887 - August 1966), the father of the late Governor Orval Eugene Faubus of the U.S. state of Arkansas, was a poor farmer and founded one of Arkansas' few chapters of the Socialist Party of America.

He gave his son the middle name "Eugene" to honor Socialist Party of America founder Eugene V. Debs of Indiana.

Socialist Appeal

Socialist Appeal (US, 1935) - a newspaper published first by a Trotskyists from 1935 to 1941, first by the Trotskyist faction in the Socialist Party of America and, following their expulsion by the newly founded Socialist Workers Party.

Workers' Defense League

The group was founded on August 29, 1936 with the endorsement of Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America.


Americans for Democratic Action

The UDA was formed by former members of the Socialist Party of America and Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies as well as labor union leaders, liberal politicians, theologians, and others who were opposed to the pacifism adopted by most left-wing political organizations in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

California gubernatorial election, 1934

Held in the midst of the Great Depression, the 1934 election was amongst the most controversial in the state's political history, putting conservative Republican Frank Merriam against former Socialist Party member turned Democrat Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle.

Charles H. Vail

Vail is best remembered as the first National Organizer of the Socialist Party of America and as a candidate of that party for Governor of New Jersey.

Circle City, Arizona

The development was built in the late 1950s by the The Workmen's Circle, a Jewish fraternal and mutual aid society with roots in the Socialist movement of the early 20th century, as a retirement community for its aging members.

Harry W. Laidler

He is best remembered as Executive Director of the League for Industrial Democracy, successor to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, and for his close political association with perennial Socialist Party Presidential nominee Norman Thomas.

Herman Marth

Herman Arthur Marth (January 28, 1880 - March 11, 1970) was a chef, restaurateur, union organizer, and Socialist state legislator from Wausau, Wisconsin who served two terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly, from 1918-1920.

Jack Bergen

An active Socialist Party of America member (secretary of the local branch), he was elected to the city school board and in 1934 was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives as part of the Socialist sweep of local elections under Mayor Jasper McLevy, while working as a Federal Emergency Relief Administration supervisor.

Labor Research Association

The Labor Research Association (LRA) was established late in 1927 by International Publishers president Alexander Trachtenberg and several individuals formerly associated with the Socialist Party's Rand School of Social Science, including Scott Nearing, Solon DeLeon, and Robert W. Dunn, as well as the prominent radical intellectuals Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins.

Mary O. Kryszak

In 1928, she unseated Republican Assemblyman Louis Polewczynski to represent the Eighth Milwaukee County district (the 8th and 14th wards of the City of Milwaukee), taking 3,889 votes to 2,659 for Socialist Nick Wroblewski and 2,239 for the incumbent Polewczynski.

Rand School of Social Science

The Rand School maintained a close relationship not only with the Socialist Party of America proper, but also with the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and such trade unions as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

Raymond Joseph Cannon

In 1932, Cannon was the Democratic nominee for the 4th District seat in the 73rd United States Congress, unseating Republican incumbent John C. Schafer with 61,038 votes to 33,609 for Schafer and 24,377 for Socialist Assemblyman Walter Polakowski.

United States Socialist-Labor Party

The United States Socialist-Labor Party was a socialist political party in the election of 1928 which broke away from the main Socialist Party of America.


see also

Sol Goldstein

In 1976, Frank Collin and his neo-Nazi National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) held anti-black demonstrations in Marquette Park, Chicago.

Workers Party of America

Both the Workers Party of America and the Socialist Party of America engaged in separate labor party efforts, prior to the Presidential election of 1924.