Top of page

Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities
BETA

Newspaper The Daily Worker (Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.) 1924-1958

View All Front Pages

About The Daily Worker (Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.) 1924-1958

The Daily Worker was created for Communist Party USA members in 1921. The paper was originally titled the Worker, centered in Chicago and marketed as a weekly newspaper for the first three years of its existence. It then moved to New York City and carried out a pre-planned expansion into a daily broadsheet with a new name, Daily Worker. Publication under this new title lasted from 1924 to 1958. The Daily Worker was primarily focused on issues relating to organized labor.

In the January 13, 1924 edition, the first under their new name, the paper declared, “Now, in this first issue of The Daily Worker, we join hands with the comrades of the Communist International in declaring that the Daily is but ‘The forerunner of more revolutionary dailies in other parts of the country.'” Most articles covered events that involved collective labor action, including crackdowns by business owners, strikes, and other forms of collective bargaining.

Like other Communist Party USA-backed newspapers of the time, the Daily Worker was supportive of the Civil Rights movement. It fought continual legal battles for freedom of speech and freedom of the press to prevent being shut down. The Daily Worker firmly opposed McCarthyism. American law enforcement and intelligence agencies heavily infiltrated the Daily Worker‘s contributor and subscriber bases. Its pages were surveilled to gather information about the Communist Party USA.

Firmly Stalinist in its outlook for most of its period of publication, the Daily Worker struggled to keep together after the death of the Soviet leader. A further cause of division was the Soviet crackdown on the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In the November 5, 1956 edition, editor John Gates wrote, “The action of Soviet troops in Hungary does not advance but retards the development of socialism because socialism cannot be imposed on a country by force.” Many Communists were upset by the Daily Worker‘s editorial stance that the crackdown was unjustified. The Daily Worker subsequently moved towards Social Democrat political alignment and away from Soviet policies.

The American Communist party membership was deeply divided by the Soviet response to the Hungarian uprising and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policies. Subscriptions plummeted below sustainable levels. The Daily Worker also refused to place advertisements within its pages like other capitalist papers used for financial stability. The lack of ad revenue meant that the paper was vulnerable to funding losses from subscriptions and support from the official communist party.

As the Communist Party USA fractured ideologically, their finances suffered. The party withdrew financial support from the Daily Worker in an attempt to cut costs. The final edition was released on January 13, 1958. The Daily Worker editorial board explained in their cover article that “Overwhelming was the financial burden on a shrinking Left-Wing movement beset by internal difficulties.” In its own obituary, the editorial board noted proudly that the Daily Worker was “the longest-lived English language radical daily newspaper in the United States.”

Between 1925 – 1934 the Daily Worker published two different editions: a “National” and “New York” or “Final City” edition. Most editions represented here are the “New York” edition.

Provided By: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Daily Worker (Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.) 1924-1958

Names

  • Workers (Communist) Party of America
  • Communist Party of the United States of America

Dates of Publication

  • 1924-1958

Created / Published

  • Chicago, Ill. : Daily Worker Pub. Co., 1924-1958.
  • New York, N.Y. : Daily Worker Pub. Co., 1924-1958.

Headings

  • -  Communism--Newspapers
  • -  Labor movement--Newspapers
  • -  Labor unions--United States--Newspapers
  • -  New York (N.Y.)--Newspapers
  • -  Chicago (Ill.)--Newspapers
  • -  Communism
  • -  Labor movement
  • -  Labor unions
  • -  Illinois--Chicago
  • -  New York (State)--New York
  • -  United States
  • -  United States--New York--New York--New York
  • -  United States--Illinois--Cook--Chicago

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Daily (except Saturday and Sunday), Oct. 20, 1947-
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 311 (Jan. 13, 1924)-v. 35, no. 7 (Jan. 13, 1958).
  • -  "Worker's Communist Party."
  • -  Some issues accompanied by supplements.
  • -  Available on microfilm; Graphic Microfilm of New England, Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, and UMI.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Sunday eds.: Sunday worker, 1936-Apr. 12, 1942; Worker (New York, N.Y. : 1942), Apr. 19, 1942-1958.
  • -  Absorbed in 1958 by: The Worker (New York, N.Y. : 1942).
  • -  Worker (New York, N.Y. : 1942) (DLC)sn 86071659 (OCoLC)13777362

Medium

  • 35 v. : ill. ; 43-55 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn84020097

OCLC Number

  • 10341040

ISSN Number

  • 2769-4763

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://www.loc.gov/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Daily Worker Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y. -1958. (New York, NY), Jan. 1 1924. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020097/.

APA citation style:

(1924, January 1) The Daily Worker Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y. -1958. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020097/.

MLA citation style:

The Daily Worker Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y. -1958. (New York, NY) 1 Jan. 1924. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84020097/.