Biography
Philip Frankfeld was chairman of the Maryland-District of Columbia Communist Party and one of six defendants in the Baltimore Smith Act prosecution. Federal agents arrested him on August 8, 1951. A jury convicted him in 1952, and the court sentenced him to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine. After the appeals failed, he entered federal custody on January 27, 1953 and served time at the Atlanta penitentiary. The exact release date remains unresolved.
The Daily Worker of February 2, 1935, page 3, reports that the Pennsylvania State Pardons Board notified the Frankfeld Liberation Committee on February 1 that it would consider pardon applications for Phil Frankfeld, Emma Brletic and Dan Benning on February 20, announce the result by February 23, and, if hearings were granted, hold them no earlier than March 20. This documents a planned pardon process and a defense campaign, not an actual pardon, hearing or physical release on any of those future dates.
The Daily Worker of May 3, 1935, page 3, reports his physical release from the Allegheny County Workhouse on May 1 after a gubernatorial commutation. It says District Attorney Parks attempted to restrict his organizing by procuring a parole arrangement even though the commuted sentence had ended that morning. The report distinguishes physical release from continuing parole restrictions; it does not establish his initial jail-admission day.
In "Some of the Worse Forms of Opportunism," signed P. Frankfeld in the January 17, 1930 Daily Worker, page 4, Frankfeld described firsthand visits to Communist Party units in Pennsylvania's anthracite region as a Party subdistrict organizer. He criticized the persistence of Lithuanian-language unit business, inactivity in the mines and recruitment, and advocated recruiting new workers into the Party. This is contemporary evidence of his organizing and political writing before the later Pittsburgh and Baltimore prosecutions; it establishes no additional custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n270-NY-jan-17-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The Daily Worker of February 16, 1935, page 1, prints Frankfeld's letter to the International Labor Defense enclosing one dollar for the Scottsboro defense. Writing as an imprisoned Pennsylvania unemployed leader, he urged support and connected the Scottsboro appeals to the freedom of other class-war prisoners. The letter is evidence of his prison correspondence and solidarity activity; publication does not supply an individual admission date or a new prosecution.
The June 19, 1929 Detroit dispatch names Auto Workers Union organizer Philip Raymond and Communist Youth League district organizer Philip Frankfeld as arrested June 17 at a Fisher Body plant gate meeting in Pontiac. Each was held under $400 bail on a charge of molesting employees. The judge postponed trial until July 3 because he needed to locate the statute; this was a forecast, not a reported final disposition. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n089-NY-jun-20-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The November 12, 1934 Daily Worker announces a parole hearing before Judge R. R. Lewis for November 13 and describes the campaign for his release with other Ambridge defendants. It calls his Allegheny County Workhouse sentence two to four years. The scheduled hearing is not an actual parole or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n270-NY-nov-12-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The July 20, 1934 Daily Worker reports that the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the sentences in the Frankfeld, Egan, Brletic and Benning campaign the previous week and that further appeal petitions were being filed. It connects Frankfeld’s prosecution with the September 1, 1933 attempted constable sale of the MacGregor family’s goods in Patton Township and describes a later bench warrant. The sale date alone is not proof that he was physically arrested that day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n173-jul-20-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The July 26, 1930 Militant names him with Dan Slinger, John Little, Sylvan A. Pollack and Joe Tash as Scranton sedition prisoners. It describes a warrantless raid on union and ILD offices following Tash’s arrest during a Dunmore speech, police-barracks photography and fingerprinting, and ten hours before charges were announced. Ten hours describes the delay before charges, not total custody. The report’s claim that the five remained jailed is in tension with earlier bail releases documented for four co-defendants; no unsupported rearrest or shared release date is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1930/28jul1930.pdf#page=8
The July 3 dispatch describes the July 2 Scranton sedition raid and $1,000 bail and recalls an earlier Sunday Pittston meeting arrest. Five July defendants are not all individually named in this report. The Sunday arrests of Slinger, Little and Pollack were followed by release before the July raid; those earlier detentions are distinct from the sedition rearrests. Tash and Frankfeld are not assumed to share identical arrest circumstances. Daily Worker, July 4, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n160-NY-jul-04-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The July 3 report explicitly names this organizer among those arrested at or in connection with the Pittston miners’ meeting on Sunday, June 29, 1930. Pollack was detained when seeking bail for the others. Slinger, Little and Pollack were released before the July 2 raid. Precise physical release for the other named men is not supplied. This is distinct from the later Scranton sedition case. Daily Worker, July 4, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n160-NY-jul-04-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
At the April 1934 Communist Party convention, Frankfeld described Pittsburgh-district unemployed organizing, resistance to evictions and sheriff sales, and weaknesses in recruiting and organizing around the Jones and Laughlin steel mill. The same issue greeted him as a leader due to enter prison shortly; this prospective statement supplies no physical admission date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n085-apr-09-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
The February 15, 1935 report explicitly says Frankfeld was then serving a two-to-four-year sentence at Blawnox Prison, Pennsylvania, and identifies him as an Unemployment Council national executive member and Pittsburgh organizer. A State Board of Pardons hearing was scheduled for February 20; that prospective hearing does not establish release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n040-Nat-feb-15-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
A February 18, 1935 Pittsburgh dispatch reports pardon resolutions from UMWA locals 1736 at Rossiter, 6639 at Strattanville, 6464 at Boswell, 6480 at Houtzdale and 1386 at Nanty Glo. Several locals also submitted petition lists signed by their membership. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n044-Nat-feb-20-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
A letter signed from Blawnox Penitentiary, Cell 7, Range J, on April 6, 1935 greeted the Young Communist League thirteenth anniversary. Frankfeld discussed his daily contact with young prisoners and urged the Party to help build youth organization in basic industries. The accompanying article identifies his two-year sentence for leadership of Pittsburgh unemployed struggles; it does not establish two years actually served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n095-NAT-apr-20-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
The Detroit dispatch dated August 25 individually names this organizer among thirty-one people arrested at the Cadillac Square Sacco-Vanzetti and Gastonia protest the previous Saturday, indicating August 24. The second meeting’s dispersal is not assigned as another personal arrest, and no completed detention or discharge is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The Daily Worker of March 4, 1935, page 3, reports that Frankfeld had lost fifty-five pounds in three months in the Allegheny County Workhouse and was assigned to its tag shop, described by the paper as a slave workshop. It urges pardon action with Egan and the Ambridge prisoners. The report adds contemporary prison-work and health conditions without establishing a new case, admission day or completed duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n054-NAT-mar-04-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Labor Defender, April 1934: The Pittsburgh report describes Frankfeld already out on bail while contesting a two-to-four-year term arising from resistance to sale of a jobless worker’s household goods. It says a clerk accepted $2,500 bail papers before a Superior Court judge telephoned to cancel that amount and demand $4,000. This documents the bail dispute, without assigning an unsupported physical release day or prison-admission date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n04-apr-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=18
Daily Worker, July 16, 1934, page 1: The July 15 Pittsburgh report says the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the sentences of Egan, Frankfeld, Emma Brletich, Dan Benning and Paul Verkovich. It describes Frankfeld's six-month-to-one-year workhouse term for obstructing legal process after Patton Township unemployed workers bought the MacGregor family's goods at a constable sale the preceding September. The ILD intended a further Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeal and, if necessary, US Supreme Court review. Affirmation and an intended further appeal do not establish a fresh arrest or complete actual service. The separate Rankin defendants' new trials are not applied to the Ambridge defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n169-sect-one-jul-16-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 5 reports Frankfeld actually serving the existing two-to-four-year Blawnox sentence for inciting to riot and obstructing legal process. This appeal describes the conduct as preventing an eviction, while earlier case evidence describes a sheriff's livestock sale; the source descriptions are preserved without silently rewriting the event. It says he worked in a dust-filled rag shop, could receive one letter and one visitor monthly, and had not yet met his newborn child. Wife Mary supplied family testimony. No new arrest or completed duration follows. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n302-Nat-dec-19-DW-LOC.pdf
PDF pages 3–4 recall the two-to-four-year Blawnox sentence and defense campaign for Frankfeld and James Egan. The year-end review describes resistance to evictions and foreclosures. These are contemporary descriptions of the already documented prosecution, not additional arrests or proof of full nominal service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n01-jan-1935-orig-LD.pdf
Labor Defender, February 1935, PDF page 22: His wife Mary Frankfeld of Pittsburgh describes bringing their three-month-old son Billie to see him for the first time. The warden allowed a three-minute meeting through a barred guard-office door, during which he touched the baby’s hand. She identifies an imposed two-to-four-year term and hopes for earlier freedom. The letter documents family circumstances and intermediate confinement, not a completed term or release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n02-feb-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=22
The July 3 dispatch, continued on page 2, named these participants among those arrested in the Wall Street anti-imperialist demonstration and jailed at the second precinct. The report gave collective charges of obstructing traffic, speeches to incite riot and insulting an officer, with hearings scheduled that night and International Labor Defense representation. Later case-specific reporting may differ from these initial collective charges. Daily Worker, July 4, 1928, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n157-NY-jul-04-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The July 11, 1928 report said Phil Frankfeld, Fanny Plotkin and Anna Bloch were released at 4 p.m. the previous day after completing two-day terms imposed by Magistrate Maurice Gottlieb in the July 3 Wall Street anti-imperialist demonstration case. Daily Worker, July 11, 1928, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n163-NY-jul-11-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
A Pittsburgh dispatch dated February 19 in the February 20, 1934 Daily Worker identifies Frankfeld as leader of the Western Pennsylvania Unemployed Councils and reports his conviction the previous Thursday, February 15, for inciting to riot and obstructing legal process. The prosecution arose from resistance to a sheriff’s sale of a farmer’s livestock, where about one thousand workers assembled and bought the stock for $1.19. The report says he was sentenced to two to four years in the Blawnox jail, and that the International Labor Defense sought a new trial and planned an appeal. This is a separate 1934 proceeding from his 1930 unemployment-demonstration arrest and later Baltimore Smith Act prosecution. The article establishes a conviction and sentence, but not actual jail admission, completed service or release; those custody dates and duration remain unknown.
The Daily Worker, July 10, 1928, page 1, individually names Phil Frankfeld among the Wall Street anti-imperialist demonstrators sentenced by Magistrate Maurice H. Gottlieb on July 9 after the July 3 arrest. He received two days in the Tombs or a $10 fine and chose imprisonment. This earlier case is separate from his 1930 unemployment and later Smith Act prosecutions. The report establishes committal, not an independently verified completion or release day.
Reviewed original source 2084, relevant PDF pages stated in note.
Daily Worker, February 2, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, February 16, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Daily Worker of October 13, 1934, page 3, reports a Pittsburgh defense meeting of two hundred veterans protesting the cases of Egan, Frankfeld and the Ambridge prisoners. Jim Egan spoke while under a one-year sentence for speaking at the Inauguration Day unemployed demonstration. His appearance as speaker does not establish a new imprisonment or completion of that sentence; no custody dates or duration are inferred from this meeting report.
The October 22 Danville dispatch printed in the Daily Worker of October 23, 1934, page 3, describes Frankfeld as currently serving the imposed two-to-four-year term at Blawnox for activity on behalf of unemployed workers. This is a contemporary custody snapshot, not proof of serving the full nominal term, a new commitment or an exact admission day.
The Glassport Unemployment Council publishes its demand for freedom for Frankfeld and Egan and Governor Pinchot’s office reply referring pardon requests to the Board of Pardons. The reply grants no pardon. The item’s collective language about long terms does not establish a new admission or uninterrupted confinement for Egan while his existing conviction remained under appeal.
Daily Worker, July 16, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 19, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, January 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Carl Reeve’s April 3 jail interview places Frankfeld in Allegheny County Workhouse at Blawnox after about seven months, working in the rag-rug department and limited to one outgoing letter per month. Counsel reported a decline from about 200 pounds to just over 140, and exclusion of extra outside food. The article distinguishes consecutive eighteen-month inciting-to-riot and six-month obstructing-process terms; a pardon hearing had occurred but no pardon or release was reported.
