Henry Cowell

Most of Henry Cowell’s political inclinations lay relatively dormant until 1929, a year that saw the confluence of several crucial events. In May he returned from an extraordinary visit to the Soviet Union, in October the New York stock market crashed, and in January 1930 Cowell became a regular faculty member at the New School for Social Research, an unorthodox progressive educational institution in New York City known as a hotbed for left-wing intellectuals and artists. The same period saw the emergence of new cultural organizations from the Communist Party of the United States, in which Cowell actively participated. This article explores Cowell’s engagement with the American left through an analysis of his writings and activities beginning in 1929, following his return from Russia. He embraced communist ideals as a means of improving conditions for American composers, whom he regarded as an underclass, while advancing a vision of modernism accessible to the masses. Cowell’s imprisonment in 1936 and his release four years later coincided with a changing political climate that forced him to recalibrate his political past. Drawing on newly discovered and previously neglected sources, this study examines Cowell’s ideological political commitments during a period in which leftist intellectuals and artists sought to emancipate themselves from the oppressive nature of capitalism and later the fear of anticommunism. By situating Cowell’s communist past within its American context, it offers a nuanced understanding of his political ideas, their impact on musical modernism, and the ways in which changing national circumstances compelled him to distance himself from earlier affiliations.