Biography
Sophie Melvin was a nineteen-year-old youth organizer and one of the three women charged with murder. Sophie Melvin was one of the sixteen Gastonia defendants held in the Gaston County jail on the first-degree murder charge — facing the electric chair — after the 7 June 1929 killing of Police Chief Aderholt. The murder charge against the defendants outside the convicted seven was dropped before the October retrial. On 7 June 1929, police attacked the National Textile Workers Union tent colony at the Loray Mill in Gastonia, North Carolina, and Police Chief O. F. Aderholt was killed in the exchange of fire. Sixteen strikers and organizers were charged with his murder — a frame-up, the defense held, aimed at breaking the communist-led Southern textile drive. The International Labor Defense mounted a national campaign for the Gastonia defendants.
Sophie Gerson, wife of New York Communist Party figure Simon Gerson, faced denaturalization and deportation under the Walter-McCarran Act for alleged concealed Communist affiliation. Her case was part of the McCarthy-era use of immigration law against suspected Communists.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 1–2: The June 13 bulletin names this prisoner under assault with intent to kill, alongside fifty-two unnamed people. This records the accusation at that stage of the Gastonia case, not a separate prosecution or final verdict. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The August 26, 1929 report names this defendant among the sixteen assembled for the Charlotte Gastonia trial before Judge M. V. Barnhill. It distinguishes nine Southern Loray workers from seven organizers and discusses the defense’s planned police-violence evidence. The allegations are attributed defense accounts. Trial appearance is not a new arrest or proof that a previously bailed defendant had been returned to jail; later convictions and individually established bail releases remain separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Liston Oak’s August 2 dispatch reports this defendant’s actual release that day on $5,000 bail posted by the ILD, after detention since the June 7 shooting. It says the accusation had been reduced to second-degree murder and records the women’s opposition to being favored over their male co-defendants. They donated their jail library to the remaining prisoners. This corroborates the already stored release; the August 26 trial and announced defense tour were future events, not another custody phase. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n129-NY-aug-06-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n127-NY-aug-03-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The October 4, 1929 Gastonia report individually names the nine defendants physically released Monday, September 30 after the prosecution ceased pursuing them in the Aderholt murder case. Its collective four-month description is not an individually measured custody total. This is the existing Gastonia prosecution. Daily Worker, October 4, 1929, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n180-NY-oct-04-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
1920s custody-date review: The Daily Worker of August 3, 1929, page 1, carries Liston Oak's Gastonia dispatch dated August 2. It names Amy Schechter, Vera Buch and Sophie Melvin, states that all three had been jailed since the June 7 shooting, and reports their completed release that day on $5,000 bail each. This establishes August 2 as their bail-release date, not the later dismissal of charges. Vera Buch is also spelled Bush in the headline. The separate later proceedings in Sophie Melvin's record are unchanged.
Sources: Daily Worker, August 3, 1929, page 1; June 8 Gastonia Gazette report, transcribed by ANCHOR, independently naming Schechter and Bush among those arrested the preceding night. Existing portraits retained.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The November 7 Lawrence dispatch in the November 10, 1930 Daily Worker reports that police stopped Edith Berkman and Sophie Melvin on November 5 after a National Textile Workers Union meeting at the American Woolen Company’s Wood Mill and took both organizers to the police station. It lists disorderly conduct, blocking traffic, a city-ordinance violation and speaking without a permit among the charges. The organizers defended themselves at trial; the newspaper specifically reports Melvin guilty of speaking without a permit, the other charges dismissed and a $5 fine. After the trial, the city marshal warned both organizers to keep away from the mills. This Lawrence arrest and police-station confinement is separate from Melvin’s 1929 Gastonia imprisonment and later immigration proceedings. The report supplies neither an exact trial or physical release day nor a completed custody duration; the fine is an imposed monetary penalty.
Her first-person statement reports birth year 1910. LD1929.
