Am

Amter, Israel (1881-1954)

A founding member of the Communist Party USA and a leading functionary into the 1940s, Amter was born on March 26, 1881, in Denver to Jewish immigrant parents. He joined the Socialist Party in 1901, and in 1903 moved to Germany where he remained until 1914, editing the German Export Review, participating in the Social Democratic Party, and studying music at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he composed his never-performed opera Winona (1912), which concerns the love between a U.S. army officer and a Native American woman, Winona. He was in the Communist Labor Party though was not a top level official in that organisation but later a prominent figure in the United Communist Party from 1920 until the 1940s. He stood as Communist Candidate for the Governorship of New York in 1932, 1936 & 1942. He led and spoke frequently at demonstrations of the unemployed. He was included in the 1951 indictment (for conspiring to overthrow the Government by force) which sent 15 top Communists to jail, but was not brought to trial because of ill health. Died of Parkinson's disease, December 1954. The Tamiment Library, New York has his papers and music.