Sender Garlin papers

Sender Garlin was a labor journalist and social activist who moved to Boulder with his wife, Martha Millet Garlin, in 1980. Throughout his long career, Garlin has interviewed many notables including Lucy Parsons, Clarence Darrow, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Woody Guthrie, Krapskaya (Lenin’s Widow), Olga Knipper-Chekhova, the widow of Anton Chekhov, Georgi Dmitrov, hero of the Reichstag frame-up trial, and Tom Mank, veteran British trade union leader.

Sender Garlin was born in Bialystok, Poland, on April 4, 1902. In 1906, his family escaped Poland after pogroms ravaged Jewish communities in his town. They settled in Burlington, Vermont, and later moved to Glens Falls, New York. Sender Garlin studied at the University of Wisconsin, New York University Law School, Albany Law School, the New School for Social Research, and the Rand School of Social Science. He gained extensive journalism experience. He worked for The Daily Worker for 17 years, and was associate editor of New World Review. Additionally, Sender Garlin was a founding editor of The Partisan Review and was a charter member of the American Newspaper Guild. Later on, he worked for the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, did public relations for the New York Heart Association, and was editor of Physician's Legal Brief.

Sender Garlin is the author of numerous political pamphlets, including The Real Huey Long, The Truth About Reader’s Digest, The Real Rickenbacker, Enemies of the Peace, Is Dewey the Man?, and Red Tape and Barbed Wire: Close-Up of the McCarren Act. Later on in his career, Sender Garlin authored three historical-biographical works: John Swinton, American Radical, Charles Steinmetz, Scientist and Socialist, and William Dean Howells and the Haymarket Era.

Sender Garlin participated in protest movements on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927, the Scottsboro, Alabama case involving nine young blacks in 1931, and the Rosenberg’s in the fifties. He became a well-known individual in Boulder during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly on the CU Boulder campus. He established and was program coordinator of the Social Issues Forum, a student organization devoted to drawing leftist and liberal speakers to CU. Garlin was a member of the CU Cultural Events Board from 1982 to 1986. During his tenure on the board, he frustrated conservative campus groups, but was adamant that his advocacy cultivated balance. He has been a guest lecturer in many classes. He has frequently been interviewed on Boulder Public Radio KGNU and has given more than 20 lectures on the CU campus, making use of his experience and knowledge of the American labor movement. Some of his talks include “’Reds’ and the Real John Reed,” “Emma Goldman: Anarchist and Feminist,” “Scott Nearing: Humanist and Environmentalist,” “The Untold Story of Colorado Labor,” “Bertold Brecht and the Un-Americans,” “’Big Bill’ Haywood of Colorado,” “The Haymarket Tragedy: 100 Years Later,” “The Life and Death of Joe Hill,” and most recently, “Mark Twain: Social Critic.”

He was active in an assortment of Boulder-based political groups, including the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Left Hand Books and the Rocky Mountain Peace Center. Additionally, he was successful in his campaign efforts for the construction of a shelter at the RTD stop across from the University of Colorado Memorial Center.

Sender Garlin died at 97 years of age in his home in Boulder on December 6, 1999. He had two children with Martha Millet, Emily and Alexander, and a granddaughter, Annelise. He also had a son from a previous marriage, Victor, and two granddaughters Amy and Rachel, who all lived in Berkeley, California.