Samuel Sillen

Samuel Sillen was an American literary critic, author, professor, and magazine editor. In 1948, he co-founded and became the first editor of the Marxist monthly publication, Masses & Mainstream.

Biography

Sillen was born in Brooklyn, where he attended Boys High School. He graduated from NYU in 1930. In 1935, he received a doctorate in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He wrote his dissertation on the 19th century English biographer, Sir Leslie Stephen. After graduating, Sillen was hired as an English professor at NYU. He remained in the job until 1944, when he left in anticipation of what he expected to be an anti-Communist purge at the university.
While teaching at NYU, Sillen started contributing articles to Communist Party publications, including the Daily Worker and New Masses. For the latter publication, he sometimes used the pseudonym "Walter Ralston". In 1937, Sillen became literary editor at New Masses, eventually replacing Granville Hicks as chief literary critic. In 1944, Sillen edited and provided a lengthy introduction to Walt Whitman: Poet of American Democracy. The following year, he edited a similar anthology about 19th century American poet William Cullen Bryant.
In 1947, the CPUSA launched a quarterly literary journal called Mainstream, with Sillen serving as its editor. The journal only lasted one year. In 1948, facing dwindling financial resources, Mainstream and New Masses were merged into Masses & Mainstream. Sillen was a co-founder of the new monthly publication and its first editor. During his tenure, he wrote and/or edited numerous pamphlets that were published under the Masses & Mainstream imprint. In some instances, notable issues of the magazine were re-edited by Sillen and separately published. In 1955, he authored Women against Slavery, a book about American women abolitionists.
In April 1956, in the wake of Khruschev's Secret Speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, Sillen resigned his editorship at Masses & Mainstream. He also dropped out of the CPUSA that same year. He then got a job as editor at Citadel Press. He became interested in the medical field and from 1963 to 1967 served as senior editor of Medical World News. In 1972, he co-authored with Alexander Thomas a book titled Racism and Psychiatry.
On February 5, 1973, Samuel Sillen died of cancer at University Hospital of [Brooklyn at Long Island College Hospital|University Hospital] in Brooklyn. He was 62.