Begun in late 1929 in New York City, the John Reed Club, organizing revolutionary writers and artists, quickly grew to other cities and towns. Beyond the JRCs, many dozens of similar local collectives were active at this time. The work of the Detroit Club in 1931.

‘The Detroit John Reed Club’ from New Masses, 1931.

Detroit John Reed Club. May, 1931.

The John Reed Club of Detroit, with a membership of 20, was formed after the first meeting, last week in April. An exhibit of New Masses artists, shown in Chicago last month, with the work of the John Reed Club artists of that city, is being planned for Detroit together with the work of local artists. Temporarily, those interested can communicate with Robert Cruden, 1799 Eason St, Detroit, Mich.

Detroit John Reed Club. July, 1931.

The roster of the local John Reed Club, after its third organizational meeting, includes 49 members. These are divided into work-groups representing the dance, drama, music, painting and writing. The Club is conducting activities along lines required by conditions particularly indigenous to Detroit. It is hoped that the club will be housed in its own quarters some time during the Fall.

At the huge protest demonstration against the Cheeney Alien Registration bill held at the Olympia Auditorium on June 19th, with Wm. Z. Foster as main speaker, the John Reed Club drama and music groups presented Undesirables, a pageant, with a cast of 600. The club meanwhile is at work on other projects for the immediate future.

Workers engaged in the theatre, writing, the graphic arts, painting, music, sculpture and film are invited to apply for membership by addressing The John Reed Club, 91 East Kirby Street, Detroit.

Detroit John Reed Club. December, 1931.

Permit us to greet the other John Reed Clubs through the Workers’ Art Section of New Masses.

We can now announce that the Detroit John Reed Club has been reorganized with admirable results.

The club Executive is made up of the officers of the John Reed Club and the six leaders of the work groups. The two elected officers for this present term are Bess Schmidt, Sec’y-Treas., and Duva Mendelssohn, International Sec’y. General meetings of the entire club are held at least once a month or more often if found advisable by the executive board. At present, a large room has been rented in the center of the city, within easy access of all members. The club room is opened from three o’clock on each day, for the use of students and the various work groups.

The general membership, over fifty in number, is divided into six work groups: artists, drama-film, writers, music-dance, students, and associate. Each group, although working out its own respective tasks, may aid one another in some overlapping activity.

The club is participating in the Workers Educational Association Bazaar to be held on Dec. 4, 5, 6. The Music-Dance group is preparing a dance tableau, the artists prepare their booth, and the students undertake the sale of the New Masses. As regards the flogging outrage aimed at the members of the Pontiac unemployment council, resolutions have been formulated and sent to the bourgeois press, protesting against such brutal happenings. The members are also offering their help in the sale of the Hunger March subscription books and plan to prepare posters for the Michigan district in their march upon the capitol.

A New Year’s Ball will be the first affair of the John Reed Club. It will be held at 269 E. Warren, the Douglas Hall.

All of our comrades send fraternal greetings to other workers groups, assuring them of their interest and cooperation in all workers cultural activities.

DUVA MENDELSSOHN , International Sec’y.

Detroit, Mich.

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.