Gardner, Virginia

GARDNER, VIRGINIA (1904-1992). Journalist and biographer, Gardner was a member of the Communist Party and union activist. She wrote for the Federated Press, a labor news service, and the New Masses and Peoples World. In 1953, she covered the Rosenberg case for the Daily Worker and a year later published The Rosenberg Story. In 1982, she published a major. Well-reviewed biography, “Friend and Lover”: The Life of Louise Bryant.

Born in Indian Territory, in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Gardner moved with her two sisters and parents to Fort Smith, where she received the schooling that prepared her for college. She studied journalism and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1924. After working at various Plains states newspapers, in 1930 she landed a staff position at the Chicago Tribune and remained there for the next ten years. She became known for her muck-raking reportage, most notably for exposing the lethal effects on the workers who produced radium watch dials. Meanwhile, Gardner married and divorced two leftist journalists and in 1939 joined the Communist Party. Embroiled in a labor dispute with Col. Robert L. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, she resigned in 1940 and moved to New York City.

At the peak of the Popular Front, Gardner worked with the Women’s Division of National Democratic Committee and became a lifetime member of the Newspaper Guild. Moving further left, she became active in the citizens committee supporting Harry Bridges, who was facing deportation. After World War II broke out, she worked for the Federated Press and, later, for the New Masses. In 1947, Gardner moved to Los Angeles to fill a position at the People’s World. A year later she got caught up in the Red Scare in California and was pressured to find other employment. Unable to secure work as a journalist, she supported herself by working in a meat-packing plant. The lure of better prospects took her to New York City. She joined the staff of the Daily Worker, where she remained until 1959. After working for a while as a free-lance medical writer, in 1963 she became the editorial assistant to Corliss Lamont, a noted socialist philosopher and civil rights activist. She died in San Diego.

Virginia Garner Papers. Guide. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. New York University. http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_100/