Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights

by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett

Overview

This first comprehensive biography of Jewish American writer and humorist Harry Golden (1903-1981)—author of the 1958 national best-seller Only in America—illuminates a remarkable life intertwined with the rise of the civil rights movement, Jewish popular culture, and the sometimes precarious position of Jews in the South and across America during the 1950s.

After recounting Golden's childhood on New York's Lower East Side, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett points to his stint in prison as a young man, after a widely publicized conviction for investment fraud during the Great Depression, as the root of his empathy for the underdog in any story. During World War II, the cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur landed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and founded the Carolina Israelite newspaper, which was published into the 1960s. Golden's writings on race relations and equal rights attracted a huge popular readership. Golden used his celebrity to editorialize for civil rights as the momentous story unfolded. He charmed his way into friendships and lively correspondence with Carl Sandburg, Adlai Stevenson, Robert Kennedy, and Billy Graham, among other notable Americans, and he appeared on the Tonight Show as well as other national television programs. Hartnett's spirited chronicle captures Golden's message of social inclusion for a new audience today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469645643
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/01/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	221,583
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett is a writer living in New Hampshire. She worked as a journalist for more than thirty years in New England and the Pacific Northwest.

What People are Saying About This

Leonard Rogoff

This highly readable portrait makes the case for Harry Golden as both a historically significant and truly inimitable character.

Jack Claiborne

This honest and humorous volume brings the memory of Harry Golden to life as a man and a public figure, making him a real person with all his charms and flaws exposed and putting him in the context of his times. He was an essential partner in the civil rights movement, and the United States could use another Harry Golden today, someone who can puncture political posturing as deftly as he did. Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett shows that doing what Golden did took not only intelligence and imagination but also considerable personal courage.

Daniel Horowitz

I've always wondered about the man behind the newspaper the Carolina Israelite and the best selling book Only in America and now I know: in her engaging and wonderfully written biography, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett has given us a vivid portrait of a man, a place, and his time.

Raymond Arsenault

Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett's fascinating new book, Carolina Israelite, reminds us of the old aphorism that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Written in sparkling prose and bristling with insight, her authoritative biography of Harry Golden reconstructs the extraordinary life of a Jewish ex-con from New York who, after resettling in North Carolina in 1941, became a bestselling author and a powerful voice for civil rights and social justice. The author's gift for storytelling rivals that of her protagonist, and the book is a joy to read from start to finish.

From the Publisher

This highly readable portrait makes the case for Harry Golden as both a historically significant and truly inimitable character.—Leonard Rogoff, author of Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina



This lively and engaging book brings within a single biographical purview the history of journalism, the South, the civil rights movement, and American Jews.—Stephen J. Whitfield, author of In Search of American Jewish Culture



This honest and humorous volume brings the memory of Harry Golden to life as a man and a public figure, with all his charms and flaws exposed, and puts him in the context of his times. He was an essential partner in the civil rights movement, and the United States could use another Harry Golden today, someone who can puncture political posturing as deftly as he did. Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett shows that doing what Golden did took not only intelligence and imagination but also considerable personal courage.—Jack Claiborne, author of The Charlotte Observer: Its Time and Place, 1896–1986



I've always wondered about the man behind the newspaper the Carolina Israelite and the best-selling book Only in America and now I know: in her engaging and wonderfully written biography, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett has given us a vivid portrait of a man, a place, and his time.—Daniel Horowitz, author of On the Cusp: The Yale College Class of 1960 and a World on the Verge of Change



Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett's fascinating new book, Carolina Israelite, reminds us of the old aphorism that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Written in sparkling prose and bristling with insight, her authoritative biography of Harry Golden reconstructs the extraordinary life of a Jewish ex-con from New York who, after resettling in North Carolina in 1941, became a best-selling author and a powerful voice for civil rights and social justice. The author's gift for storytelling rivals that of her protagonist, and the book is a joy to read from start to finish.—Raymond Arsenault, author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice



In a book both sweeping and meticulous, raucous and thoughtful, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett not only chronicles the remarkable life of Harry Golden, but gives us new insight into the unique relationship of American Jews and African Americans. It is a superb, enjoyable, and enlightening work.—David Boardman, Dean of the School of Media and Communication, Temple University



Harry Golden was a world-class character, a masterful storyteller who used his quick wit and humor to ridicule southern segregation with outrageous but hilarious satire to carve out an improbable place in American and southern Jewish history. We can thank Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett for her well-researched biography, bringing to life for a whole new generation the man who wrote the smashing best-seller called Only in America.—Eli N. Evans, author of The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South

Stephen J. Whitfield

This lively and engaging book brings within a single biographical purview the history of journalism, the South, the civil rights movement, and American Jews.

Editorial Reviews

[Hartnett] does not scant any of her subject's faults and brings out his virtues.—Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal



[Hartnett] is a superb writer who knows what can be produced when you research the past and learn what 'regular people' are reading.—Robert Stepto, Washington Post



Superbly written [and] solidly researched.—Seattle Times



[A] highly readable and recommended biography.—Library Journal, starred review



[A] brisk, thoroughly researched, and mostly admiring biography.—Edward Kosner, Commentary



Much more than the biography of one man . . . this is a well-told account of the civil rights movement, describing significant milestones in its history, the splits among its leaders, and the various forms that activism took. A solid piece of research.—Kirkus Reviews



Comprehensive, expertly researched and engagingly written.—News & Observer



Compelling.—New Hampshire Union Leader



This book describes a significant chapter of American political history....Will appeal as a well-told, stranger than fiction tale.—CHOICE



[A] comprehensive biography [that] reads like a Who's Who of [Golden's] heyday."—BookReporter.com

From the Publisher

★ 04/15/2015
Journalist and humorist Harry Golden's best seller Only in America secured him a place in mid 20th-century Jewish American popular culture. This comprehensive biography of Golden's fascinating life (1902–81) by journalist Hartnett sheds light on other facets of this important figure and his role in the cultural and social scene in that era. Through this well-written narrative, we get a glimpse into the civil rights movement and the New York literary and publishing scene as Golden was an valuable adjunct to both. Golden founded a newspaper in Charlotte, NC, called Carolina Israelite that he published well into the 1960s, using his journalistic skills and celebrity to advocate for civil rights. He was an articulate and passionate spokesman for social inclusion, and his enormous popularity as a journalist prompted Life magazine to send him to Israel to cover the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann. This irked the so-called New York intelligentsia who, until this time, had largely ignored Golden. His critics included the Partisan Review crowd and novelist Philip Roth. VERDICT This highly readable and recommended biography will be a welcome addition to public and university libraries, especially those with interests in Jewish American culture, the civil rights movement, and the American South.—Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

Library Journal

2015-02-14
A warts-and-all portrait of Harry Golden (1903-1981), founder of the North Carolina newspaper Carolina Israelite.Hartnett pulls no punches in describing the life and career of the Jewish American humorist perhaps best known for his bestselling first book, Only in America (1958). She makes clear that he was a charming man who tricked people out of money and reneged on promises. Born Hershel Goldhirsch in present-day Ukraine, he told various versions of when he was born and when he arrived in New York City's Lower East Side. Hartnett notes his discrepancies but does not attempt to sort them out. She passes briefly over his short career on Wall Street and his prison sentence for mail fraud, focusing instead on his life in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he settled during World War II and where he founded the Carolina Israelite. Liberal quotes give the flavor of Golden's style, his warm humor about the Jewish experience in America, his deep sympathy for the underdog, and especially his views on race relations. Hartnett shows us his friendship with Carl Sandburg, who wrote the foreword for his first book, his work for Adlai Stevenson, his relations with the Kennedy White House, and the disdain he received from Jewish intellectuals, who found him sentimental, even corny. The popularity he enjoyed in the 1950s and '60s waned in the '70s, as a younger generation disagreed with his views on the Vietnam War and were not charmed by his romanticized Lower East Side stories. Much more than the biography of one man, however, this is a well-told account of the civil rights movement, describing significant milestones in its history, the splits among its leaders, and the various forms that activism took. A solid piece of research that reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of a now-forgotten man who loved a good story and could put a comic spin on important social issues.

Kirkus Reviews