In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, many New York writers used novels and poems as tools to address the working class, or “proletariat.” Using the written word to advance their political agenda, these writers espoused their views on class, communism, and global affairs. This movement “does not believe in literature for its own sake,” explained writer and editor Mike Gold, “but in literature that is useful, has a social function.”

As the nation’s publishing capital, New York was the center of the proletarian literary movement. Literary-minded activists formed organizations such as John Reed Clubs and the League of American Writers to spread their message; established magazines such as New Masses; and held debates at clubs and conferences. The proletarian literary movement was part of a broader cultural wing of the “Popular Front,” a broad anti-fascist political alliance initiated by the Communist International, in which artists used literature, music, theater, photography, and film to advocate for a global leftist politics. 

World War II, and specifically disillusionment with the foreign and domestic policies of the Soviet Union, altered the course of the movement. The Popular Front alliance shattered in 1939, when the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany. 

Increased internal factionalism and a changing geopolitical landscape led groups such as the League of American Writers to disband in 1943. Proletarian literary voices continued after the war, but the focus of New York’s intellectuals shifted from economics to a critique of culture.