UPDATE: In December 2022, with the publication of digital images of The Daily Workerin the years 1924 - 1934 by the Library of Congress on its Chronicling America web page, the Riazanov Library digital archive project and Marxists Internet Archive embarked on a major upgrade of the digital archive of The Daily Worker presented here. We obtained all of the pages (offered arduously one page at a time) on the Library of Congress web site, assembled them into multipage issue files, and found other sources of digital images to help us provide issues in 1935 and 36, and fill in gaps in the Library of Congress's material. Marty Goodman made the discovery (apparently unknown at this time to all others involving in holding or presenting images of The Daily Worker) that in the period of 1925 - 1936 in most months two issues of the paper were printed daily... a New York edition and a National edition. With somewhat different content. We've done what we can to present runs of both edition types of The Daily Worker here, but sadly (because no one organized their collection or cataloguing of the paper with respect to edition type... or was even aware of this, it seems) we met with only limited success, offering runs of both editions published each day (at times fragmentary) only in the period of 1925 - 1929.
We currently here present at least one edition type of the paper (New York or National) for very nearly every day the paper was published from its first issue on January 13, 1924 through October of 1936. In most cases that is the New York edition, from scans provided by Library of Congress, but in the case of some years the National edition is presented. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most complete digital presentation of The Daily Worker in the period of 1924 - 1936 available anywhere. It is the only organized presentation we know of that provides the issues as multi-page pdf files of entire issues, with volume and issue number noted, with a flag as to whether the issue is a New York or National edition issue, and with comments noting special and/or damaged copies of issues.
May 2023
Click here for an essay Why we believe this is a superior digital archive of “The Daily Worker”. In docx format.
Click here for the essay on the origin of the scans of The Daily Worker as presented here on the MIA and why there are two different editions. In docx format.
Click here for an explanation of the “flags” in filenames used here that indicate the origin of the scans. In docx format.
Introduction
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a broader spectrum of left-wing opinion. At its peak, the newspaper achieved a circulation of 35,000. Notable contributors to its pages included Robert Minor and Fred Ellis (cartoonists), Lester Rodney (sports editor), David Karr, Richard Wright, John L. Spivak, Peter Fryer, Woody Guthrie and Louis Budenz.
The Daily Worker’s ancestry goes back to the weekly Ohio Socialist published by the Socialist Party of Ohio out of Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919. The Ohio party joined the nascent Communist Labor Party at the 1919 Emergency National Convention.
The Ohio Socialist became Toiler in November 1919. In 1920, with the CLP going underground, Toiler became the party’s "aboveground" newspaper published by “The Toiler Publishing Association.” It remained as the Cleveland above ground publication of the CLP and its successors until February 1922.
In December 1921 the “above ground” Workers Party of America was founded and the Toiler merged with Workers Council of the Workers’ Council of the United States to found the six page weekly The Worker.
This became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.
The Ohio Socialist only used whole numbers. Its final issue was #94 November 19, 1919. The Toiler continued this numbering, even though a typographical error made its debut issue #85 November 26, 1919. Beginning sometime in 1921 the volume number IV was added, perhaps reflecting the publications fourth year in print, though its issue numbers continued the whole number scheme. The final edition of the Toiler was Vol IV #207 January 28, 1922. The Worker continued the Toiler’s numbering during its run Vol. IV #208 February 2, 1922 to Vol. VI #310 January 12, 1924. The first edition of The Daily Worker was numbered Vol. I #311.
—Wikipedia
Daily Worker for the years:
The Daily Worker for 1924
The Daily Worker for 1924 Scanned in high resolution from original paper
The Daily Worker for 1925 New York Edition
The Daily Worker for 1925 National Edition
The Daily Worker for 1926 New York Edition
The Daily Worker for 1926 National Edition Scanned in high resolution from original paper
The Daily Worker for 1927 New York Edition
The Daily Worker for 1927 National Edition
The Daily Worker for 1928 New York Edition
The Daily Worker for 1928 National Edition
The Daily Worker for 1929 New York Edition
The Daily Worker for 1929 National Edition
The Daily Worker for 1930
The Daily Worker for 1931
The Daily Worker for 1932
The Daily Worker for 1933
The Daily Worker for 1934
The Daily Worker for 1935
The Daily Worker for 1936
We present here small runs of The Daily Worker after 1936 that shed light on particular historic events of interest.
The Daily Worker for 1937 [January and February only – covering the Flint Sit Down Strike, and The Daily Worker’s coverage of the second major Moscow Trial]
The Daily Worker for 1939 [Covering the period of The Daily Worker’s handling of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact also known as the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact or the “Hitler – Stalin Pact” (announced August 23, 1939).). ]
The Daily Worker for 1941 [coverage of the days before Operation Barbarrosa and after the Germans invaded. Also: Coverage of Joe DiMaggio’s breaking Willie Keeler's record (set in 1897) of hitting safely in 44 consecutive baseball games. Only 17 issues included here.]
The very last issue of the The Daily Worker, January 13, 1958
Special: Daily Worker Cartoons!
Pamphlets and Miscellaneous Publications
White Terrorists Ask for Mercy [A Comparison of the Persecution of Revolutionists by the White Terror and the Treatment of Counter-Revolutionists in Soviet Russia.—1925]
For more publications and documents of the CPUSA and Workers Party of America, go the Communist Party of the USA Page
Last updated on:
30 October 2023
17 September 2023
2 June 2023
14 May 2023
7 April 2023
6 April 2023
2 April 2023
24 October 2022