Henry Alsberg (original) (raw)

Henry Garfield Alsberg (September 21, 1881 – November 1, 1970) was an American journalist and writer who served as the founding director of the Federal Writers' Project. A lawyer by training, he was a foreign correspondent during the Russian Revolution, secretary to the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and an influential volunteer for refugee aid efforts. Alsberg was a producer at the Provincetown Playhouse. He spent years traveling through war-torn Europe on behalf of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. After publishing several magazines for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, he was appointed to head the Federal Writers' Project. Fired from the project shortly after testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he worked for a short time for t