University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Archives Department.

Campenni, Frank, 1930-2000, collector.

Collection of Howard Fast papers, 1933-1993.

UWM Manuscript Collection 213

3.4 cubic ft. (9 boxes)


ABSTRACT: The collection consists of materials of a University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee (UWM) English Professor's research on Howard Fast, a prolific communist author. The significant areas of the collection focus on Howard Fast's political involvement with the Communist Party (1943-1956) and the Anti-Fascist movement (1945-1950). The collection contains photocopies of correspondence, copies of literary manuscripts (typescripts), newspaper clippings, oral history interviews, poems, political flyers and pamphlets, and a subpoena to appear before the United States Senate. Included is correspondence with Bette Fast, Steve Nelson, Albert Maltz, Morton Sobell, and various literary publishers.

ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: There are no access restrictions on the materials, and the collection is open to all members of the public in accordance with state law. However, the researcher assumes full responsibility for conforming with the laws of libel, privacy, and copyright which may be involved in the use of this collection (Wisconsin Statutes 19.21-19.39). 

For some interviews, there exist both original and access copies. As a preservation measure, researchers must use the access copies, when they exist, rather than the originals.

Contact the University of Pennsylvania Library, the designated repository of Howard Fast's personal and literary papers, for information concerning copyright.

SCOPE AND CONTENT: The collection documents Frank Campenni's research concerning Howard Fast's life, literary work, and his involvement with and subsequent departure from the Communist Party. The collection is organized into two series:

  1. Howard Fast. This series contains records that document Howard Fast's political activism in the United States from the 1930s to the 1960s. These files include correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and political ephemera that document Howard Fast's political and social life, his involvement with the Communist Party, and his literary career. Correspondence includes photocopies of letters and other written communications to and from family, personal, political, and publishers. Manuscripts, both published and unpublished non-fiction, plays, and short stories are included in the Howard Fast series. None of the literary manuscripts are original documents; all are reproductions of typescripts. Newspaper clippings, which date from the 1930s through the 1960s, specifically focus on Howard Fast and his social and political involvements.

  2. Frank Campenni. The bulk of this series consists of Frank Campenni's research for his Ph.D. dissertation, Citizen Howard Fast. These files include Campenni's oral history interviews with Fast. In the interviews, Fast discusses his involvement with the United States Communist Party, primarily during the 1940s and 1950s, his participation in various Party activities, and his relationship with prominent Communist Party Members, such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Eugene Dennis, and William Z. Foster. 

ARRANGEMENT: Materials in series 1 and 2 are organized alphabetically by folder title, then chronologically. The oral history interviews are organized chronologically.  The interviews were recorded on reel-to-reel and cassette tapes.

DEACCESSION NOTE: In August 2006, Michael Doylen removed the following folders from the collection and transferred them to the University of Pennsylvania Library, the official repository of Howard Fast's papers, at the request of Mimi Fast:  box 1, folders 23-25; and box 2, folders 2-6, 8, 14, 18-19.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Frank Campenni was an English Professor at UWM for thirty-six years, 1956-1992. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in 1971.   

Howard Fast was a prolific author of historical novels, biographies, popular histories, children's stories, film scripts, plays, detective fiction, and science fiction. Fast also wrote under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. In the 1940s, and again in the 1970s and 1980s, he achieved best-seller status with novels explicitly promoting left-wing ideas.

The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Barney and Ida Miller Fast, Fast attended George Washington High School in New York City and graduated in 1931 at the age of sixteen. In 1932, Fast published his first work, Two Villages, a romantic novel. Within a few years, he had written more than half a dozen historical novels about the American Revolutionary War period, including Conceived in Liberty (1939), The Last Frontier (1941), The Unvanquished (1942), and Citizen Tom Paine (1943). 

He married his wife Bette in 1937, and in 1943 joined the American Communist Party.  In 1950 the House of the Un-American Activities Committees (HUAC) ordered Fast to provide names of fellow members of the American Communist Party. Fast refused, citing his 1st Amendment right, and was subsequently sentenced to three months in prison. While in prison he wrote his most famous novel, Spartacus (1953), about a slave revolt in ancient Rome. Blacklisted upon his release, he established his own publishing company, the Blue Heron Press. In 1952 he ran for Congress on the American Labor Party ticket, and in 1954 he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.  

Fast left the Communist Party in 1956, disillusioned by the Soviet Union's own stunning revelations of Stalin's terror and by the spread of anti-Semitism there. In conjunction with leaving the Party he wrote a book about his political experience, The Naked God (1957). In 1957 he moved to Hollywood to begin a career as a scenarist, and in 1960 Spartacus was made into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas.  

During his lifetime Fast published more than forty books under his own name and twenty as E.V. Cunningham. Howard Fast died in Greenwich, Connecticut, on March 12, 2003.

COLLECTION CITATION: This collection should be cited as:

Campenni, Frank, 1930-2000, collector. Collection of Howard Fast papers, 1933-1993. UWM Manuscript Collection 213. University Manuscript Collection. Archives. UWM Libraries. University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee.

RELATED COLLECTION:

Kramer, Leon, 1889-1962. Papers. (UWM Manuscript Collection 183)

ACQUISITION: Jeanine Campenni donated the collection to the Archives in November 2003 (accession number 2003-040).

PROCESSING: Karen Bjork processed the collection at the Archives from March to July 2004.

International Workers of the World (I.W.W.) books and pamphlets were removed from the collection and added to UWM Libraries Special Collections. The oral history transcripts from the Fast, Howard, 1914-2003, Oral history interview, 1973 (UWM Manuscript Collection 55) were integrated into this collection. 

MARC RECORD SEARCH TERMS: The following terms were used in the online bibliographic MARC record to this collection:

UWM Manuscript Collection 213.
1: Howard Fast.		 BOX FOLDER
Advertisements, Literature, 1950-1954, undated 1 1
Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, 1945, 1948, undated 1 2
Book Royalties, 1949-1970 1 3
Copyright and Contracts, 1941-1957, undated 1 4
Correspondence, A-B, 1932-1935, 1941-1958 1 5
Correspondence, Advertising and Publishing, Spartacus, 1951-1952, undated 1 6
Correspondence, Awards and Honors, 1934-1938, 1945-1953 1 7
Correspondence, C, 1934, 1951-1955 1 8
Correspondence, Communist Party, Separation, 1957  1 9
Correspondence, D, 1933-1939, 1945-1953, 1960 1 10
Correspondence, Editors, Miscellaneous, 1948, 1953-1954 1 11
Correspondence, Family, 1950, undated 1 12
Correspondence, Family, Bette Fast, 1945, 1950, undated 1 13
Correspondence, Fan Mail, 1945-1946, 1949-1953, undated   1 14
Correspondence, F-G, 1945-1947, 1956-1959 1 15
Correspondence, Film Studios, 1944-1948, 1961-1962 1 16
Correspondence, J-K, 1935, 1942, 1952, 1956 1 17
Correspondence, L, 1941-1946, 1950-1958, undated 1 18
Correspondence, M-N, 1932, 1937-1952, 1957-1965 1 19
Correspondence, P, 1945 1 20
Correspondence, Passport Division, 1944-1955 1 21
Correspondence, Personal, Albert Maltz, 1944, 1946-1957 1 22
Correspondence, Personal, Department of Justice, 1950 1 26
Correspondence, Personal, Edward North, 1945-1946 2 1
Correspondence, Political, Congressional Candidate, 1952-1953, undated 2 7
Correspondence, Political, May Day, 1947, 1950-1957, undated 2 9
Correspondence, Political, McCarran Act, 1950-1952, 1955 2 10
Correspondence, Political, Miscellaneous, 1942, 1945, 1957 2 11
Correspondence, Political, Morton Sobell, 1954-1955, undated 2 12
Correspondence, Political, Peace Councils, 1949-1950, 1955-1956 2 13
Correspondence, Political, Rosenberg Case, 1952-1953, undated 2 15
Correspondence, Political, Steve Nelson, 1954-1955, undated 2 16
Correspondence, Political, Wallace for President, 1948, undated 2 17
Correspondence, Publishers, Crown Publishing, Inc., 1957-1958, 1964, 1969 2 20
Correspondence, Publishers, Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, Inc., 1936, 1939-1945, 1948  2 21
Correspondence, Publishers, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1937-1939, 1948 2 22
Correspondence, Publishers, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1941, 1948-1949, 1952, 1957 2 23
Correspondence, Publishers, The John Day Company, 1934-1936 2 24
Correspondence, Publishers, John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, 1954, 1957-1958  3 1
Correspondence, Publishers, Literary Magazines, 1935-1948, 1951, 1956 3 2
Correspondence, Publishers, Little Brown and Company, 1944-1948 3 3
Correspondence, Publishers, Little Brown and Company, 1949-1953 3 4
Correspondence, Publishers, The MacMillian Company, 1935, 1951 3 5
Correspondence, Publishers, McIntosh and Otis, Inc., 1937-1938, 1940 3 6
Correspondence, Publishers, Negro Digest, 1944-1945 3 7
Correspondence, Publishers, Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1936, 1938-1941, 1949, 1956 3 8
Correspondence, Publishers, William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1968-1970 3 9
Correspondence, R-S, 1935-1954, 1956-1964 3 10
Correspondence, Universities, 1940, 1949, 1953-1958 3 11
Correspondence, V-W, 1933-1942, 1950, 1957, 1961, undated 3 12
Election Campaign, 1952 3 13
Election Campaign, Expenses, 1952 3 14
Election Campaign, Letterhead, undated 3 15
Election Campaign, Resolutions, 1948, undated 3 16
Election Campaign, Wallace for President, 1948 3 17
Flyers and Pamphlets, Miscellaneous, 1952, undated 3 18
Invitations, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic, 1951, 1954-1955, undated 3 19
Manuscript, Annabelle, undated 3 20
Manuscript, Benjamin Franklin Part III, 1973 3 21
Manuscript, Busman's Holiday, undated 3 22
Manuscript, Citizen Tom Paine, 1976 3 23
Manuscript, The Clients, undated 3 24
Manuscript, The Crossing, undated 4 1
Manuscript, Farewell Dimitrios, undated 4 2
Manuscript, The Hammer, undated 4 3
Manuscript, The Hessian, undated  4 4
Manuscript, High Place, undated 4 5
Manuscript, In the Beginning, undated 4 6
Manuscript, The Judge, undated 4 7
Manuscript, The Long Road to Glory, undated [1 of 2] 4 8
Manuscript, The Long Road to Glory, undated [2 of 2] 4 9
Manuscript, Naked God, undated 4 10
Manuscript, The Novelist, undated 5 1
Manuscript, The Puppet Show, undated 5 2
Manuscript, Sam Houston Part I, 1975 5 3
Manuscript, The Trap, 1977 5 4
May Day, 1946-1953 5 5
McCarran-Winter Bill, undated 5 6
Miscellaneous Publications, 1937-1939, 1945-1952 5 7
Miscellaneous Publications, 1954-1958, 1964 5 8
Miscellaneous Publications, undated 5 9
Musical Score, undated 6 1
Mundt Bill, undated 6 2
National Council of the Arts and Profession, 1948-1953, undated 6 3
Nelson, Steve, 1952-1955, undated 6 4
Newspaper Clippings, 1947-1948, 1950 6 5
Newspaper Clippings, 1952-1954 6 6
Newspaper Clippings, 1956-1957 6 7
Newspaper Clippings, 1958-1959, 1967 6 8
Newspaper Clippings, Foreign Language, 1956-1957, undated 6 9
Newspaper Clippings, New York Times, 1942-1960 6 10
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, A-C, 1943-1947, 1964 6 11
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, Cunningham, E.V., 1965-1967 6 12
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, D-M, 1942-1956 6 13
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, N-P, 1937-1942, 1951-1963 6 14
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, R-T, 1941-1952, 1966 6 15
Newspaper Clippings, Reviews, U-V, 1960 6 16
Personal and Family Papers, 1903, 1914, 1924, 1931-1936, undated 7 1
Poems, 1953, undated 7 2
Radio Broadcast, Agreements and Transcripts, 1948-1952 7 3
Rosenberg, Ethel and Julius, 1953 7 4
Sobell Committee, 1953-1954 7 5
Subpoena, 1953 7 6
World Council of Peace, 1955, undated 7 7
World War II, 1942-1945 7 8

UWM Manuscript Collection 213
2: Frank Campenni.		 BOX FOLDER
Biographical Notes, 1937, undated 8 1
Correspondence, 1965, 1968-1969, 1974-1975 8 2
Dissertation, Citizen Howard Fast, Introduction-Bibliography, 1971 8 3-6
Dissertation Outline, undated 8 7
Manuscript, Biography, Chapters 1-8, undated 8 8-9
Manuscript, Howard Fast: Phoenix from the Forties, undated 8 10
Oral History, Transcript, 1967 December 1 8 11
Oral History, Transcript, 1968 April 12 8 12
Oral History, Transcript, 1968 April 15 8 13
Oral History, Transcript, 1968 April 16 8 14
Oral History, Transcript, 1973 January 3  8 15
Oral History, Interview, 1973 March 13-14 [Audio cassettes 1-2]  9 -
Oral History, Transcript, 1973 March 13-14 8 16
Oral History, Transcript, 1974 August 19 9 1
Oral History, Interview, 1977 [Audio cassette 4] 9 -
Oral History, Transcript, 1977 9 2
Oral History, Interview, undated [Audio cassette 3] 9 -
Oral History, Transcript, undated 9 3
Oral History Questions, undated 9 4

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URL: http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/arch/findaids/uwmmss213.htm
Last edited on June 14, 2007.
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