Calendars

CALENDARS. Long a primary form of literary expression and outreach for ethnic-radical movements, calendars reappeared during the 1960s among environmental, feminist, labor-political and other progressive movements. In each case marking special memorial days and showcasing particular illustrations, calendars made a political point with ease and subtlety.

The German American socialists, borrowing upon their home traditions, produced the first important radical calendars and some of the most lasting series. From 1882 to 1933, the Pionier-Kalendar appeared, published by the New Yorker Volkszeitung. Over a hundred pages in length, this creation featured top-flight illustrations and writings by many of the outstanding intellectuals of the movement. Generally, a title-page portrait of a major figure such as Marx or Ferdinand Lassalle would be followed by the actual calendar section with dates of important socialist events included, reading material (generally preceded by a poem of the year), then some pages of advertising and greetings from socialist, labor and fraternal groups. Outright political expressions were integrated into a popular reading-matter context of stories, jokes and poems—ranging from class-conscious to love and nature themes—and historical, economic and popular-scientific essays.

The Pionier, more thoroughly than any of its successors, urged self-improvement upon its working-class audience. Essays on art and literature encouraged readers to develop their own aesthetic understanding. In later years the works of artists like Käthe Kollwitz were frequently reproduced in the Pionier. Women’s rights, applied specifically to the housewife, who likely referred most often to the calendar, grew in importance over the decades, conveying a desired empowerment in daily life. By its final decade, ending with the outbreak of World War II, authors and audience had become alte Genossen, old-timers in a fast-disappearing milieu. Yet it continued until the end to express a motto it claimed for itself: For the Worker the Best Is Just Good Enough!

Other socialist ethnic groups, imitating the Pionier or in some cases continuing their own homeland-ethnic traditions, published calendars in proliferating numbers by the 1910s. These had relatively less importance for groups that were large in numbers and semi-assimilated, than for smaller and more insular groups who had few linguistic alternatives. Among Slavs, for instance, even the Socialist Labor Party’s sectarian “South Slavonian Federation,” from their headquarters in Cleveland, continued into the 1930s to publish and sell door-to-door in Slovenian neighborhoods their calendar with American holidays, socialist and labor memorial days, and Slovenian saints’ days intermingled, facing a popular homeland illustration.

Although rarely successful among English-language radical groups, calendars began to reemerge as fundraising efforts for 1960s–1970s movements. Sometimes, as with the City Lights Bookstore calendars, more emphasis was placed upon the literary avant-garde, but with a socialistic (or anarchistic) political undertone. Sometimes, as with the Mill Hunk calendars from Pittsburgh’s blue-collar organizing project, much emphasis was placed upon labor history. Frequently, as with a variety of feminist calendars, “recovered” lives of radical women and women’s history events saw the light of day. Environmental groups placed special emphasis upon nature pictures, with a preservationist undertone. Only a relatively few calendars emphasized immediate political concerns; audiences were not only too small for such a strategy, but as with the ethnic calendars, the politics of daily life continued to predominate in a successful calendar.

Poore, Carol. “The Pionier Volks-Kalendar.” In The German-American Radical Press, edited by Ken Fones-Wolf, James Dankey, and Elliot Shore. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990.