Talk:Jacob Burck

Birth Date
Moved the following section from the article to the Talk page. It's not really in question or of interest to most readers.Sedimentary (talk) 19:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

(Who's Who lists his year of birth as 1904. Hunger and Revolt states he was born in 1907.[2] The New York Times states he was born in 1905.[3])  The family emigrated from Poland, then part of the Russian empire, to the United States when Jacob was 7 years old.[4]

Untitled
Briefly taking work as a sign painter at the age of 20 years old is irrelevant and including that minor point is gratuitous. Burck never ceased being a fine artist.

Burck was never a "fellow traveler" and it is critical to remove the implication that Burck was ever an active communist or opposed the US government in any way. He was completely cleared of the charges and successfully continued his career, unlike many others who were black-listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.56.152 (talk) 09:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not agree!
If one is writing a biography about an individual's life, one's employment history is worthy of mention. Is it ESSENTIAL to mention that he was a sign painter? On the face of it, probably not.

As for Burck's being a fellow-traveler, here is the biography page of his 1935 book, published by the Communist Party's daily newspaper, The Daily Worker:

"He began his professional art activities as a portrait painter. After a year of this work he revolted at this catering to the vanities of a parasitic class. He decided to give up 'art' {MARK WELL] and turned to sign painting as a more wholesome means of earning a living. In 1926 he entered the revolutionary movement. There he found that true art had a vital place in society and its class conflicts. His work became a weapon on the side of the working class.

"In 1927 he began to draw cartoons for the Daily Worker and other revolutionary publications. Two years later he became a staff cartoonist for the Daily Worker and since then has drawn daily cartoons depicting the social struggle." — Burck, Hunger and Revolt, pg. 247.

So, in that context, working as a sign painter IS relevant and worthy of mention.

It is flat out absurd, if you will forgive me, for one to contend that Burck was never "an active communist or opposed the US government in any way." This is factually incorrect to the point of being a blatant denial of reality. Burck drew nearly every day for the Communist Party's daily newspaper, during the ultra-radical Third Period, no less. His two books published by the Communist Party in 1929 and 1935 are cited, please investigate one at your leisure before making the contention that Burck never "opposed the US government in any way." OF COURSE he did.

That he later recanted and became an anti-communist is also part of his story, but please don't try to whitewash reality.

Carrite (talk) 18:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * One more thing — per the assertion that he "never ceased to be a fine artist," according to the "official" bio of 1935, he did that very thing when he became a sign painter, before returning to "fine art" as a political cartoonist. This mentioned for what it's worth. Carrite (talk) 18:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You are Mistaken
Unfortunately, user "Carrite", you are relying on a limited range of secondary sources and clearly have an ax to grind. First of all, regardless of Burck's case, being a communist in the 1930s did not mean one opposed the United States or the US government. It also did not have the stigma is does today. Second, Burck's defense of his deportation order successfully argued that his membership in the party was incidental and that he never took part in any political activity, certainly not against the US. Finally, Burck was widely covered as a fine artist in the mainstream media of the day during the early 1930s; his work as a political cartoonist was alongside that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.120.45 (talk) 22:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC)