David Lasser

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David Lasser, political activist and science fiction writer.

David Lasser (born March 20, 1902 in Baltimore , † May 5, 1996 in San Diego ) was an American writer who worked with Hugo Gernsback and who significantly influenced early American science fiction literature. During the Great Depression , he made himself particularly strong for workers' rights.

Life

Lasser grew up as the son of Russian immigrants of Jewish faith in Newark and left high school at the age of 16 to volunteer for the US Army for the First World War with the wrong age .

After a gas attack on the French front, he was honorably discharged as a sergeant in 1919. Without a suitable school leaving certificate, he was nevertheless admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering administration.

In the late 1920s, Lasser moved to New York City , where his training as an engineer helped him land a position as Managing Editor of Hugo Gernsback's new science fiction magazine Science Wonder Stories . Lasser and his authors, including Willy Ley or G. Edward Pendray at times , founded the American Interplanetary Society on April 4, 1930 , of which Lasser became the first president. They called this in 1934 then into American Rocket Society was and later direction of Pendray from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics .

Lasser died at the Remington Senior Care Facility in Rancho Bernardo, California, aged 94, leaving behind his third wife and son. An extensive interview with Lasser about his two careers in science fiction and the labor movement can be found in Eric Leif Davin's Pioneers of Wonder

plant

Lasser used all his expert knowledge in the fields of science, technology and rockets to write The Conquest of Space in 1931 . This was the first non-fictional English-language book that dealt with space travel and detailed how people will one day travel into space. This book has inspired an entire generation of science fiction writers, including Arthur C. Clarke .

From 1929 to 1933 Lasser then worked as Managing Editor at Hugo Gernsbacks Stellar Publishing Corporation . He was responsible for all issues of Science Wonder Stories and Wonder Stories Quarterly, as well as finding and hiring promising new writers. Lasser was also the editor-in-chief of Gernsback's Wonder Stories between June 1930 and October 1933 .

Political activist

September 16, 1937 David Lasser protests to President Roosevelt against the voluntary registration of the unemployed.

Lasser was also a member of the Socialist Party and politically active in the labor movement of New York City. In 1933 the Socialist Party made Lasser the national head of its Unemployed Leagues , which had been formed to organize the unemployed, demand more support for them and represent the workers employed in the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

When Lasser returned from a workers' rally from the town hall one day, his boss Hugo Gernsback fired him with the words “ You love the unemployed so much, I suggest you go join them ”. After that, Lasser threw himself even more into supporting the unemployed.

In opposition to the Socialist Party, the Communist Party also organized the unemployed in its Unemployed Councils . When in 1935 the Popular Front was called upon to enter into coalitions with similar organizations, the Communists ended their attacks on the Socialists under the new strategy no enemies to the left and suggested that efforts to help the unemployed be united. The result of this merger was the Workers Alliance of America . In the spirit of this new community, Lasser was elected President of the Workers Alliance and Herbert Benjamin, head of the former Communist Unemployed Council , became Vice President . In 1939, however, Lasser resigned on the grounds that the Workers Alliance was dominated by the communists.

Regardless, the US Congress passed a law specifically to exclude Lasser from all future state employment. Therefore, he worked as the Economics and Research Director of the International Union of Electrical Radio and Machine Workers until his retirement in 1969.

The leadership of the Workers Alliance even had the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigate Lasser as a possible public enemy. It was not until 1980 that Lasser was officially rehabilitated through a personal letter of apology from President Jimmy Carter .

memory

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) annually awards a Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award to the best non-fictional original work on aeronautics or its history. The award is named in honor of David Lasser and Lester Gardner .

Publications

Books

  • D-C armature and field-coil repair Scranton, Pa., International Textbook Co. , 1929 (with Clifford Carr )
  • Alternating-current motor repair Scranton, Pa., International Textbook Co., 1929 (with Clifford Carr)
  • The Conquest of Space New York, Penguin Books , 1931
  • A – C motor rewinding and reconnecting Scranton, Pa., International Textbook Co., 1936 (with Clifford Carr and Adolphus Dudley )
  • Work and security: a program for America. [Washington]: [Workers Alliance of America], 1938
  • Old-age security $ 60 at 60 Washington, DC: Workers Alliance of America, 1939
  • Private monopoly; the enemy at home New York, Harper 1945
  • Labor and world affairs New York: Foreign Policy Association , 1949 Foreign policy reports; v. 25, No. 13. November 15, 1949;

items

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b http://www.apogeebooks.com/Author_Bios/david_lasser.html
  2. ^ Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations With the Founders of Science Fiction / Prometheus Books / 1999 / ISBN 1-57392-702-3
  3. ^ Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection
personal data
SURNAME Lasser, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American science fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 1996
Place of death San Diego