Harvey O'Connor was an American radical journalist, newspaper editor, author, and political activist.
14 Facts About Harvey O'Connor
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The author of nearly a dozen books in his lifetime, O'Connor is best remembered for his activity in the 1919 Seattle General Strike and as a memoirist about early 20th Century politics in Washington state.
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Harvey O'Connor was born March 29,1897, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of a railway cook.
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Harvey O'Connor attended public school in neighboring St Paul before relocating with his family to Tacoma, Washington, where he completed high school in 1914.
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Harvey O'Connor was the editor of the left wing Seattle Daily Call during its short-lived existence in 1917 and 1918.
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Harvey O'Connor's activities caught the attention of the authorities, which subsequently indicted him for criminal anarchy.
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Harvey O'Connor was never brought to trial owing to the loss of a test case by the state on a similar complaint.
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In 1924, Harvey O'Connor left the Union Record to move to Cleveland, Ohio, to take a position as assistant editor of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers' Journal, the monthly magazine of the BLE.
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Harvey O'Connor next went to New York City in 1927 to head the New York bureau of the Federated Press, a left wing press agency which supplied material to newspapers of the labor movement and left wing political organizations around the country.
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In later years, Harvey O'Connor was a professional author, writing a number of non-fiction books accentuating the lifestyles of the rich and powerful and the difficult situation of the working class for commercial publishers.
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Harvey O'Connor remained politically active throughout his life, serving as chairman of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee from 1954 to 1963 and as chairman of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1964.
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Harvey O'Connor was a sponsor of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
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In 1964, Harvey O'Connor published his memoirs, regarded by historians as an important work detailing the history of the radical movement of Washington state during the first decades of the 20th century.
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Harvey O'Connor married Jessie Lloyd Harvey O'Connor, a fellow journalist and social activist, born in Winnetka, Illinois, on February 14,1904, and granddaughter of Henry Demarest Lloyd, a 19th-century American progressive political activist and pioneer muckraking journalist.