Joseph P. Lash

Joseph Paul Lash (December 2, 1909 – August 22, 1987) was an American radical political activist, journalist, and writer. A close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Lash won both the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award in Biography for Eleanor and Franklin, the first of two volumes he wrote about the former First Lady.

Background

Joseph P. Lash was born December 2, 1909, in New York City, the son of the former Mary Avchin and Samuel Lash, ethnic Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Joseph was the eldest of three sons and two daughters of the couple. from 1933 until 1935.

In 1947 with Eleanor Roosevelt, Lash was a co-founder and New York director of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), an anti-Communist national membership organization of American liberals. The Campus Strikes Against War. New York: Student League for Industrial Democracy, 1936 War, Our Heritage. With James A. Wechsler. New York: International Publishers, 1936 Toward a "Closed Shop" on the Campus. New York: American Student Union, 1936 The Campus: A Fortress of Democracy. New York: American Student Union, n.d. "The Campus Debates War and Peace" (1938) The Student in the Post-Munich World. New York: American Student Union, 1938 Dag Hammarskjöld: Custodian of the Brushfire Peace. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961 Eleanor Roosevelt: A Friend's Memoir. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1964. Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt's Private Papers. New York: W.W. Norton, 1971 Eleanor: The Years Alone. New York: W.W. Norton, 1972 From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975. Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941: The Partnership That Saved the West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1976 Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy. New York: Delacorte Press, 1980 "Life was Meant to be Lived": A Centenary Portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984 A World of Love: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends, 1943–1962. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1984 Dealers and Dreamers: A New Look at the New Deal. New York: Doubleday, 1988