Biography
Tom Zima was a member of the Communist Party from Woodlawn, now Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, and one of the defendants in the Woodlawn sedition case. The prosecution grew out of a red raid of November 11, 1926 on Communist organizers among the Jones & Laughlin steelworkers, in which Zima's house and Pete Muselin's barber shop were searched and a quantity of party literature seized. Tried under Pennsylvania's Flynn anti-sedition law alongside Muselin and Milan Resetar, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor at the Allegheny County Workhouse at Blawnox. He entered custody on November 26, 1929 and was released on February 3, 1932 — 799 days, about two years and two months. Resetar did not live to be released; he died at Blawnox in October 1931.
See the entry for Pete Muselin for a fuller account of the case, including the letters he and Zima wrote from Blawnox.
This biography previously consisted of two sentences followed by the words "WASHINGTON CRIMINAL SYNDICALISM LAW PRISONERS" — a section heading from the source, captured along with the text.
The Daily Worker of March 13, 1931, page 3, reported that Judge McConnell refused parole to Pete Muselin, Milan Resetar and Tom Zima because they remained Communists and would not repudiate the class struggle. It described an International Labor Defense pardon campaign and a planned Pittsburgh amnesty conference. The article gives December 13, 1929 as their imprisonment date, which conflicts with the separately recorded November 26 admission; this discrepancy is retained without replacing that date. The report does not supply an exact parole-decision day or a new custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n063-NY-mar-13-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Tom Zima, a term of 5 years, the year 1929 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Allegheny County Workhouse, Blawnox, Pennsylvania. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
The August 31 Woodlawn dispatch identifies him as a steelworker and reports that the Superior Court had affirmed the prosecution on April 16, 1928, with a state Supreme Court argument planned for September 24. Its accusations of company-police influence and a prejudiced jury are the newspaper’s defense account. The planned appeal is not a new arrest or physical release; the independently established later prison intake, actual service and final release or death remain unchanged. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n208-NY-sep-01-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The December 2 report gives November 11, 1926 as the arrest at Zima’s birthday party and June 20, 1927 as the trial, with five-year terms and $500 fines in the Woodlawn prosecution. November 29 reports actual commitment to Blawnox on November 26 after Supreme Court review was denied October 28, 1929. The imposed terms are not completed service. Daily Worker, December 2, 1929, original PDF page 4. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n230-NY-dec-02-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
In Milan Resetar's signed Blawnox letter printed in the August 1930 Labor Defender, Resetar reported that he and Zima were in fair physical condition. The same Woodlawn prosecution and location identify the existing record. The letter supplies no new release, sentence date or completed custody interval. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n08-aug-1930-LD.pdf#page=19
Contemporary Woodlawn trial chronology and court personnel
Sender Garlin's December 2, 1929 Daily Worker article, “Andrew Mellon, Steel and Sedition,” individually names Milan Resetar, Tom Zima and Pete Muselin as the three Woodlawn defendants arrested on November 11, 1926. It states that their trial opened in Beaver County Court on June 20, 1927 before Judge W. A. McConnel. Its quotation from the court record identifies Mr. Craig as prosecutor conducting the examination of Jones & Laughlin police captain S. G. Mauk. Those court roles are distinguished from the defense and the police witness.
The trial-opening day is not a sentencing or physical-admission date. The article's statement that imprisonment will soon begin is prospective, even though this newspaper issue is dated after the separately stored November 26 admission. It does not independently verify or replace that admission, any release/death endpoint, the stored custody totals, or the inherited year-only sentencing entry. Its June 1927 trial chronology is preserved alongside differing 1928 wording in legacy biographies rather than silently substituting a new sentencing date. The author's allegations about company and jury influence remain attributed to the contemporary report.
A. Jakira’s October 1928 Labor Defender account supplies a precise earlier Woodlawn chronology: verdict June 25,1927; sentencing December 12,1927, before Judge Wm.A.McConnel. Muselin, Resetar and Zima received five years and $500 fines plus costs; Bratich received two-and-a-half years and $200. The report dates Bratich’s appellate discharge April 16,1928. This resolves the prior year-only sentencing placeholder; the sentencing day is not copied into a physical-admission field, and the appellate discharge is not treated as a proven prison-release day. The later separate actual custody of the three whose convictions survived remains unchanged.
Labor Defender, October1928, original PDF page18 (printed214).
A reported Supreme Court refusal, not a new physical-entry record
The Washington dispatch dated November 28 says the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the Woodlawn prosecution yesterday, confirming an earlier October 28 refusal. This dates the newspaper’s reported later judicial action to November 27, 1929; it is not a personal jail-entry record. The original print says the prison term had been set to begin November 25, whereas the existing record separately places physical entry on November 26. The original scheduled date is preserved as such, not substituted for actual admission; the native text’s apparent November 26 reading is not followed over the original image. The five-year terms are imposed sentences, not five actual years served. The continuation describes an earlier attempt to stop the defendants speaking at a November 3 protest meeting through contempt proceedings, but does not independently establish another physical custody span. Existing arrest, sentence, admission, release/death and numerical storage remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, November 29, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under Blawnox, Pennsylvania, with five years, 1929. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release. PDF page 19 prints Antonia Zima’s family-relief letter from Poland, Ohio, acknowledging five ILD payments. The letter does not establish another arrest or a release.
