Carey McWilliams (journalist)

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Carey McWilliams (1905–1980) was an American journalist, editor and lawyer best-known for a strong commitment to progressive causes. Though born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, he is best known for his writings about social issues in California, including the condition of migrant farm workers and the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. For twenty years he was the editor of The Nation magazine.

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[edit] Biographical Information

McWilliams first came to California in 1922, moving in with his family after their move following a 1919 collapse in the cattle market that forced his family out of business. Taking both undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Southern California, McWilliams practiced law locally at Black, Hammack, and Black, taking on cases that prefigured some of the main issues of his writing career, including famously defending the rights of striking Mexican citrus laborers.

Falling into a circle of writers during the 1920s that included fellow Southern Californians including Robinson Jeffers, John Fante, and Upton Sinclair, McWilliams' career benefitted greatly from his relationship with H.L. Mencken, who provided an outlet for many of his earliest efforts. McWilliams' first book was a 1929 biography of popular writer and sometimes Californian Ambrose Bierce. During the 1930s, McWilliams worked with a number of left-wing organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, and wrote for progressive outlets, including Pacific Weekly, Controversy, and The Nation.

His 1939 book, Factories in the Field, proved to be likely his most influential work. Published the same year as The Grapes of Wrath, it provided an examination of the lives of migrant farm workers and an indictment of the politics and consequences of agribusiness. Taking a position as Director of Immigration and Housing under California Governor Culbert Olson that same year, McWilliams was able to momentarily focus attention on agricultural working conditions, but prospects for the type of reform envisioned by McWilliams deteriorated and McWilliams resigned his post, effectively having been fired by Earl Warren.

Continuing to focus on minority rights, McWilliams wrote a series of books, including Prejudice: Japanese-Americans, Brothers Under the Skin, North From Mexico, and A Mask for Privilege, that dealt with the treatment of various immigrant groups in mid-century America. Two local histories, Southern California: An Island on the Land (1946) and California: The Great Exception (1949) were well-received and are still seen by many as the definitive historical texts of the area more than half a century later.

Though by 1951 a committed Californian, McWilliams went to New York to work at The Nation under then editor Freda Kirchwey in attempts to revitalize the magazine's flagging influence and circulation. Taking over as editor in 1955, he stayed through 1975 and is generally credited with enhancing the cultural position of the magazine and bringing the ideas of the New Left to a more mainstream audience.

The American Political Science Association gives an annual Carey McWilliams Award "to honor a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics."

[edit] External links

[edit] Selected bibliography

[edit] By Carey McWilliams

  • Ambrose Bierce: A Biography (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1929). Revised edition: Archon Books, 1967.
  • Brothers Under the Skin: African-Americans and Other Minorities. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943.
  • California: The Great Exception (New York: Current Books, 1949).
  • (Edited by McWilliams) The California Revolution, (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1968).
  • The Education of Carey McWilliams (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979).
  • Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939).
  • Ill Fares the Land: Migrants and Migratory Labor in the United States (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942).
  • Louis Adamic and Shadow-America (Los Angeles: A. Whipple, 1935).
  • A Mask for Privilege: Anti-Semitism in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948).
  • The Mexicans in America: A Students’ Guide to Localized History (New York: Teachers College Press, 1968).
  • North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the US (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1949).
  • Politics of Personality: California, The Nation, October 27, 1962.
  • Prejudice: Japanese-Americans, Symbol of Racial Intolerance (Boston: Little, Brown, 1944).
  • Race Discrimination -- and the Law (New York: National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, 1945).
  • Small Farm and Big Farm (New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1945).
  • Southern California Country, an Island on the Land (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946). Also published as Southern California: An Island on the Land (Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, 1973). ISBN 0-87905-007-1
  • What About Our Japanese-Americans? (New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1944).
  • Witch Hunt: The Revival of Heresy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950).

[edit] About Carey McWilliams

  • Corman, Catherine A. "Teaching--and Learning from--Carey McWilliams," California History December 22, 2001.
  • Critser, Greg. "The Political Rebellion of Carey McWilliams," UCLA Historical Journal 4 (1983: 34-65.
  • Critser, Greg. "The Making of a Cultural Rebel: Carey McWilliams, 1924-1930," Pacific Historical Review 55 (1986): 226-55.
  • Mike Davis. "Optimism of the Will", The Nation, September 19, 2005.
  • Daniel Geary. "Carey McWilliams and Antifascism, 1934–1943," American Historical Review Vol. 90, No. 3, December, 2003.
  • Peter Richardson. American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2005). ISBN 0-472-11524-3
  • Dean Stewart and Jeannine Gendar (eds.). Fool's Paradise: A Carey McWilliams Reader (Santa Clara, California: Santa Clara University Press, 2001).
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