Harry Golden papers - pt. 1

Harry Lewis Golden was born Herschel Goldhirsch on May 6, 1902 to Leib and Anna Goldhirsch in the Austro- Hungarian Empire. In 1905, the Goldhirsch family emigrated to the Lower East Side of New York City. [Some of the family changed the family name to Goldhurst when they entered the workforce. Golden himself went through various name changes, starting life as Chaim Goldhirsch.] Golden graduated from P.S. 20 elementary school in 1917 and from East Side Evening High School around 1920. He enrolled at the City College of New York, but left two years later without a degree. Between 1921 and 1929, he worked various jobs in New York and became a stockbroker. Golden married Genevieve Gallagher in 1926 and they had four sons: Richard (1927-2015), Harry Jr. (1927-1991), William (1929-2010), and Peter (1938-1957). In 1929, Golden's brokerage firm declared bankruptcy and he was convicted for mail fraud and sentenced to 5 years in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Following his parole in 1933, Golden wrote and sold advertising for The New York Daily Mirror and The New York Post. He moved to Norfolk in 1941 to work for The Norfolk Times Advocate, leaving shortly thereafter for Charlotte. From 1941 to 1944, Golden worked for the Charlotte Labor Journal and The Charlotte Observer. In 1942, he commissioned The Charlotte News to print the first issue of the Carolina Israelite, which had an initial circulation of 800. The following year he formed Southland Publishing Company with Henry Stalls and Martin Rywell to own and publish the Israelite and their venture operated from 1944 to 1949, when the company's assets were transferred to the Henry Lewis Martin Publishing Company. Golden first met Carl Sandburg in 1948. In 1950, Golden wrote and published his first book, Jews in American History, with Martin Rywell. During the period 1956-57, Golden began popularizing his civil rights convictions through his articles in the Israelite on "vertical integration." An accidental fire destroyed his offices in 1958, the year in which he also released his first best seller, Only in America, and his mail fraud conviction and prison sentence were revealed in The New York Herald Tribune. In 1960, Golden toured West Germany to study the status of Jews in that country. Two more tours followed in 1961: one to Israel to cover the Eichmann trial for Life and the other to South Korea. Declining health forced Golden to cease publication of the Israelite in 1968. President Richard M. Nixon pardoned him in 1974. Golden died in Charlotte on October 2, 1981.