Editing Harry Golden

{{short description|American journalist}}

'''Harry Lewis Golden''' (May 6, 1902 – October 2, 1981) was an American writer and newspaper publisher.
[[Image:OnlyInAmericaHarryGolden.PNG|thumb|''Only in America'' (1958) paperback]]

==Early life==
Golden was born '''Herschel Goldhirsch''' (or '''Goldenhurst''')<ref name="Onofrio 2000 242">{{cite book 
   |author=Jan Onofrio
   |title=North Carolina Biographical Dictionary 
   |publisher=Somerset Publishers |location=New York |year=2000 
   |page=242}}</ref> in the [[shtetl]] [[Mykulyntsi|Mikulintsy]], [[Austria-Hungary]].<ref name=Answ01>{{cite web
   |url=http://www.answers.com/topic/harry-golden
   |title=Gale Encyclopedia of Biography: Harry Golden
   |website=[[Answers.com]]
 |year=2006}}</ref> His mother Nuchama (nee Klein)
was Romanian and his father Leib was Austrian.<ref>{{cite news 
|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=108yAAAAIBAJ&pg=3003,2919105 
|title=What A Country, America! 
|date=February 5, 1961 
|accessdate=2009-10-23 
|newspaper=The [[The Miami News|Miami News]] 
|author=Harry Golden 
}}{{Dead link|date=July 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 1904 Leib Goldhirsch, a former Hebrew teacher, emigrated to [[Winnipeg, Manitoba]], only to move the family to New York City the next year and "became an editor of the [[The Forward|Jewish Daily Forward]]."<ref name=HarryG.WashPost/>

For a time, Harry worked as a newspaper seller on the [[Lower East Side]] and could remember shouting out headlines about the [[Leo Frank]] case about which he later wrote a book.<ref>Golden, Harry ''A Little Girl is Dead'' p. vi</ref> As a teenager, he became interested in [[Georgism]], and later spoke on its behalf.<ref name="Onofrio 2000 242"/>

He became a [[stockbroker]] but lost his job in the 1929 [[Great Depression|stock market crash]]. Convicted of mail [[fraud]] because he had held onto funds entrusted and thereby caused a loss to investors, Golden served four<ref>1929-1933</ref><ref name=GoldenObit.NYT/> years in a Federal prison at [[Atlanta, Georgia]]<ref name=HarryG.WashPost/> and, decades later<ref>December, 1973</ref> President [[Richard M. Nixon]] gave  Golden a full presidential [[pardon]] for the mail fraud conviction.<ref name=HarryG.WashPost>{{cite news
   |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |author=Richard Person  
   |title=Harry Golden Dies
   |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/10/03/harry-golden-dies/9ff989cb-0a8e-44c1-8926-1591ebdd6d0e
   |accessdate=31 January 2017}}</ref>

==Desegregation==
In 1941, he moved to [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]], where, as a reporter for the ''Charlotte Labor Journal'' and ''[[The Charlotte Observer]]'', he wrote about and spoke out against [[racial segregation]] and the [[Jim Crow laws]] of the time.<ref>Pressman Fuentes, Sonia, [http://www.jewishmag.com/14mag/sonia/sonia.htm "Harry Golden & the Coat"], ''The Jewish Magazine'', October 1998.</ref><ref name="The Charlotte Observer 2014">{{cite news
|title=Harry Golden gets a spotlight  |url=http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article9118352.html
|accessdate=15 August 2015 |work=The Charlotte Observer |date=2 May 2014
|quote=Golden was a fascinating man who had some rascally ways. He came to the South from New York City after a misadventure landed him in federal prison for five years convicted of mail fraud and stock manipulation.}}</ref>

[[Image:For2centsPlainHarryGolden.PNG|thumb|left|1959 essay collection]]
From 1942 to 1968, Golden published ''The [[Carolina Israelite]]'' as a forum, not just for his political views but also observations and reminiscences of his boyhood in New York's [[Lower East Side]]. He traveled widely: in 1960 to speak to Jews in [[West Germany]] and again to cover the 1961 trial of [[Adolf Eichmann]] in [[Israel]] for ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]''. He is referenced in the lyrics to [[Phil Ochs]]' song, "[[Love Me, I'm a Liberal]]": "You know, I've memorized [[Max Lerner|Lerner]] and Golden."

His [[satire|satirical]] "The Vertical Negro Plan,"<ref>{{cite web 
   |url=http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-day-october-2-in-jewish-history.html 
   |title=This Day, October 2, In Jewish History 
   |author=Mitchell Levin  |date=October 1, 2011 |work=This Day ... in Jewish History |accessdate=29 August 2012}} {{dead link|date=August 2015}}</ref> involved removing the chairs from any to-be-integrated building, since Southern whites did not mind standing with blacks such as at bank tellers' windows,<ref name=GoldenObit.NYT>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
   |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/03/obituaries/harry-golden-an-editor-and-humorist-79-dead.html
   |title=Harry Golden, an editor and humorist, 79, dead
   |date=October 3, 1981}}</ref> only sitting with them.

Golden reportedly<ref name=GoldenObit.NYT/> convinced a southern department store manager to put an "Out of Order" sign by the water fountain marked ''White''; within three weeks all were drinking from the ''Colored''-designated drinking fountain.

[[Calvin Trillin]] devised the Harry Golden Rule, which states that "in present-day America it's very difficult, when commenting on events of the day, to invent something so bizarre that it might not actually come to pass while your piece is still on the presses."<ref name="Winokur">Winokur, Jon, ed. ''The Portable Curmudgeon''. NAL Books, 1987, p. 79.</ref>

Golden's books include three collections of essays from the ''Israelite'' and a biography of his friend, poet [[Carl Sandburg]]. One of those collections, ''Only in America'', was the basis for a play by [[Jerome Lawrence]] and [[Robert E. Lee (writer)|Robert E. Lee]]. He also maintained a correspondence with [[Billy Graham]].

==Personal==
His Irish Catholic wife, the former Genevieve Gallagher, had predeceased him.<ref name=GoldenObit.NYT/>

==Critical attention==
[[Ted Solotaroff|Theodore Solotaroff]] addressed the "Harry Golden phenomenon" in "Harry Golden & the American Audience" in ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]'' magazine, March 1961.<ref name=Answ01/>

[[Irving Howe]] compared [[Philip Roth]]'s early novel ''[[Portnoy's Complaint]]'' to ''For 2¢ Plain'' in a critical review of Roth's novel in ''Commentary'' when ''Complaint'' was published in 1969.<ref>[[David Remnick|Remnick, David]], [http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2000-05-08#folio=084 "Into the clear" (profile of Roth)], ''The New Yorker'', May 8, 2000, p. 85. Retrieved 2013-03-21.</ref>

==Bibliography==
* 1944-1968: ''The Carolina Israelite.'' (Weekly newspaper published in Charlotte, NC)
* 1950: (With Martin Rywell) ''Jews in American History: Their Contributions to the United States of America.'' (Henry, Martin Lewis Co.)
* 1955: ''Jewish Roots in the Carolinas: A Pattern of American Philo-Semitism.''
* 1958: ''Only in America.'' (World Publishing Co.) Republished 1972 by World Publishing Co.
* 1958: ''For 2¢ Plain.'' (World Publishing Co.) Republished 1976 by Amereon Ltd., {{ISBN|0-8488-1015-5}}.
* 1960: ''Enjoy, Enjoy!'' (World Publishing Co.)
* 1961: ''Carl Sandburg.'' (World Publishing Co.) Republished 1988 by Univ. of Illinois Press, {{ISBN|0-252-06006-7}}.
* 1962: (Martin Levin, Ed.) ''Five Boyhoods.''
* 1962: ''You're Entitle.'' (World Publishing Co.)
* 1962: ''The Harry Golden Omnibus.'' (Cassell & Co.)
* 1962: ''[[O. Henry]] Stories.'' (Platt & Munk) {{ISBN|0-448-41105-9}}.
* 1963: ''Forgotten Pioneer.'' (World Publishing Co.)
* 1964: ''Mr. Kennedy and the Negroes.'' (World Publishing Co.)
* 1964: ''So What Else is New?'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1965: ''A Little Girl is Dead'' (World Publishing Co., about the [[Leo Frank]] case) 
* 1965: ''Amerikah Sheli (My America).'' Hebrew. Selections from ''Only in America'' and ''For 2¢ Plain.'' (Jerusalem: Steimatzky)
* 1966: ''Ess, Ess, Mein Kindt (Eat, Eat, My Child).'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1966: ''The Lynching of Leo Frank'' (Cassell & Co., British version of ''A Little Girl is Dead'')
* 1967: ''The Best of Harry Golden.'' (World Publishing Co.)*
* 1968: ''The Humor Gazette - Funniest Stories from Country Papers.'' (Hallmark Editions)
* 1969: ''The Right Time: An Autobiography.'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1970: ''So Long As You're Healthy.'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1971: ''The Israelis: Portrait of a People.'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1972: ''The Golden Book of Jewish Humor.'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1972: ''The Greatest Jewish City in the World.'' (Doubleday & Co.)
* 1973: (With Richard Goldhurst) ''Travels Through Jewish America.'' (Doubleday & Co.)
* 1974: ''Our Southern Landsmen.'' (G.P. Putnam's)
* 1975: ''Long Live Columbus (Leben Zul Columbus).'' (G.P. Putnam's) {{ISBN|0-399-11440-8}}
* 1981: (Unfinished) ''America, I Love You.''

==Awards==
*Golden is honored with a memorial on the central campus of [[Central Piedmont Community College]] in Charlotte.

==References==
{{Reflist}}
See also, "Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care About Jews, the South, and Civil Rights" by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

==External links==
*[https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/resources/204 The Harry Golden Papers-Pt.1] J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
*[https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/resources/205 The Harry Golden Papers-Pt.2] J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
*[http://biography.yourdictionary.com/harry-golden Biography of Harry Golden] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109024931/http://biography.yourdictionary.com/harry-golden |date=2016-01-09 }}

{{Authority control}}

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