Oral history interview with Lionel Abel, 1992

Biographical Note

Author and critic

Scope and Contents

Childhood, Joplin, MO, Roanoke, VA, Niagara Falls, NY; father's vocation as rabbi, muted sense of Jewish identity; University of North Carolina; Move to Greenwich Village 1929, intellectual life of "Village," Romany Marie’s, bohemian tradition of Village; Works Projects Administration (WPA); New York in the 1930s; radicalism, marches, Socialist Party, politics, sectarianism, stature of Leon Trotsky among American intellectuals; Partisan Review, evaluation of; Communist Party (US), World War II; post-war intellectual trends, modernism, New York as art center, role of intellectuals in public life, failure of the organized left; McCarthyism; commentary on idea of "New York intellectuals"

Subjects

• Abel, Lionel--Interviews.
• Dorman, Joseph, 1958- interviewer.
• Interviews.
• New York (N.Y.)--Intellectual life--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by Joseph Dorman