Sidney Finkelstein, born in Brooklyn, New York on July 4, 1909, received his Bachelor's degree from City College in New York in 1929 and his A.M. from Columbia University in 1932 before he became a renowned critic of music, literature, and the arts. In 1955, he earned a second master's degree from New York University. During the 1930s he served as a book reviewer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and worked for the United Postal Service. In the 1940s he joined the music staff of the Herald Tribune and also served as a music reviewer for several other publications including New Masses, Masses and Mainstream. Finkelstein became active in the Communist Party U.S.A. (CPUSA) where he served as the party's leading musical and cultural theoretician. Finkelstein applied his interpretation of Socialist Realism in several books on arts and culture, the most famous being Jazz, a People's Music (1948). Between 1951 and 1973 he served on the staff of Vanguard Records, a New York based record label that specialized in jazz and classical recordings. In 1957 he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee for his Communist party affiliation. Finkelstein died in Brooklyn, New York on January 14, 1974.

Contents of Collection

Inventory of Collection

Series 1: Biographical	1914-1969
Legal documents and other personal records	1914-1957		Box 1:1
Education, records of	1925-1955		Box 1:2
Military records	1942-1947		Box 1:3
Publishing contracts and related materials	1947-1969		Box 1:4
Photographs			Box 1:5
Course outline: Philosophy of Art			Box 1:6
Lecture notes and course outline			Box 1:7
Series 2: Correspondence Note: See attached partial list of correspondents	1934-1974
Letters from SF	1949-1966		Box 1:8
Letters to SF	1934-1954		Box 1:9
Letters to SF	1955-1964		Box 1:10
Letters to SF	1965-1974		Box 1:11
Series 3: Writings	1949-1973
Student paper by SF: The Imagery of Picasso's Blue Period			Box 1:12
Student paper by SF: The Philosophy of Art of Frank Lloyd Wright			Box 1:13
Masters thesis: Picasso (fragment)			Box 1:14
Notebooks			Box 1:15
Melville/Pierre notes			Box 1:16
Book reviews by SF			Box 1:17-24
(Combined with folder 16)			Box 1:25
Is Jazz a National Expression or an International Folk Music?			Box 1:26
On jazz (fragment)			Box 1:27
On American music			Box 1:28
On opera			Box 1:29
Music and Music Criticism: A New Look			Box 2:30
Myths and Realities of the Arts	c. 1949		Box 2:31-33
Psychoanalysis and the Arts	1951		Box 2:34
On realism, especially Charles White (fragment)			Box 2:35
On Charles White's paintings			Box 2:36
Realism in Art, review of	c. 1954		Box 2:37
Realism in Art, article about & SF response			Box 2:38
On Arnold Hauser's "The Social History of Art" (fragment)			Box 2:39
Dialectical Materialism and the Arts			Box 2:40
On John Dewey's "Art as Experience"			Box 2:41
On Tagore's play "The King of the Dark Chamber" (fragment)			Box 2:42
On two articles regarding young intellectuals			Box 2:43
The Art and Science of C.P. Snow	c. 1961		Box 2:44
Composer and Nation, letters re: review of	1961		Box 2:45
Dialectics of Art/Form and Freedom			Box 3-5:46-71
Notes on Greece/Spain: High Renaissance architecture, Spanish Colonial architecture, Romanesque sculpture			Box 6:72-73
On Henry James' "The Sacred Fount"	1960		Box 6:74
James: Introduction to Princess Cassanassima			Box 6:75
Dialectical materialism & Art/ What Is Art?			Box 7:76-84
The Literary Influence of Existentialism/ The Literature of Alienation	1965		Box 8-10:85-93
Media & the Arts: The Sense and Nonsense of McLuhan	1968		Box 8-10:94-95
McLuhan Book - published versions			Box 8-10:96
On Beauty and Truth			Box 8-10:97
How Music expresses Ideas	1970		Box 11:98
Who Needs Shakespeare?	1973		Box 11:99-100

Names and Subject Terms