Biography
John Howard Lawson, a screenwriter and playwright who had been the first president of the Screen Writers Guild and was regarded as the intellectual “dean” of the group was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” the screenwriters, directors and producers who in October 1947 were subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee at the outset of its investigation into alleged Communist influence in the motion-picture industry. All ten refused to answer the committee’s central question — “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” — arguing that the inquiry violated their First Amendment rights of belief and association. On November 24, 1947 the House cited them for contempt of Congress; they were convicted the following year, and after John Howard Lawson’s and Trumbo’s appeals failed as test cases and the Supreme Court declined to hear them in 1950, all ten served federal prison terms. Every one of them was blacklisted by the studios under the “Waldorf Statement.” Lawson’s combative testimony — gaveled down by chairman J. Parnell Thomas — became the emblem of the confrontation, and his conviction was carried through the courts as one of the two test cases for all ten.
Daily Worker, July 10, 1934: The page 6 editorial reports a new Birmingham arrest on charges of printing and circulating seditious literature, linked to his newspaper exposure of attacks on striking miners. It separately recalls an arrest and order to leave the city several months earlier during his Southern investigation. Neither event is his later Hollywood Ten contempt case; the issue supplies no exact individual custody endpoints, new conviction or term served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n164-jul-10-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 1 urges protests demanding quashing of Lawson’s Birmingham indictment in the campaign against the Southern Worker seizure and raids on workers’ homes. This corroborates the existing Birmingham literature prosecution and is not a new arrest or evidence of conviction, physical discharge or completed jail time. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n186-aug-04-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3 reproduces the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners’ telegram to Birmingham Commissioner W. O. Downs, signed Alfred H. Hirsch. It protests Keith and Berlin’s arrests and connects the attack on newspaper circulation with the Lawson libel case, promising publicity until dismissal. This is a defense demand, not evidence that charges were already dismissed or another detention. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Lawson’s July 7 first-person continuation dates his Birmingham rearrest to Thursday, July 5, and describes the accusation as printing and circulating seditious literature over his May 17 Daily Worker exposure of police attacks. The front page instead calls it libel and refers to May 18; that source discrepancy is retained. The July 6 report says he was out on $300 bond. His earlier Southern investigation arrest remains a separate existing case, and no precise discharge day is inferred. Daily Worker, July 7, 1934, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n162-jul-07-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
In his May 17, 1934 Birmingham dispatch, Lawson personally reports police arresting him in court during the vagrancy trial of six Communist organizers. He was fingerprinted and photographed as booking number 26,588, then ordered out of town; he and lawyer Alexander Racolin were seized again as they left the courtroom. These are developments in the existing earlier 1934 Birmingham case, separate from the July 5 rearrest and Hollywood Ten prosecution. No exact physical discharge or complete duration is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n119-may-18-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The weekly chronology reports Lawson arrested for a third time in Birmingham,Alabama on Friday in the issue’s preceding weekly sequence. The editorial separately identifies a criminal-libel charge over his reporting. No exact calendar arrest or physical release is inferred from the day label alone. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1934/v12n03-jul-17-1934-NM.pdf#page=8
Daily Worker, July 10, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 4, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The dictionary records Lawson attending Williams College and describes his work as a playwright and scriptwriter in New York and Hollywood. It gives September 25, 1895 as his birth date, conflicting with the 1894 birth year currently recorded in this profile. The conflicting year is retained here without changing the structured birth date.
Jacob Rader Marcus, editor, and Judith M. Daniels, associate editor, The Concise Dictionary of American Jewish Biography, printed page 358 (PDF page 358).
