What is a "Red-Diaper Baby?" (Wikipedia)

Red-Diaper Baby source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_diaper_baby

Red diaper baby:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Red diaper baby describes a child of parents who were members of the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) or were close to the party or sympathetic to its aims.

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History

In their book Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left, Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro define red diaper babies as "children of CPUSA members, children of former CPUSA members, and children whose parents never became members of the CPUSA but were involved in political, cultural, or educational activities led or supported by the Party".^[1]

More generally, the phrase is sometimes used to refer to a child of any radical parent, regardless of that parent's past partisan affiliation (or the affiliation of the child). Red Diaper Baby is also the title of an autobiographical one man show and book by monologist Josh Kornbluth,^[2] and a 2004 documentary film by Doug Pray.

Further reading

• Aptheker, Bettina (2006). Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel. Seal Press. ISBN 158005160X. 
  
• Laxer, James (2004). Red Diaper Baby: A Boyhood in the Age of McCarthyism. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 1553650735. 
  
• Mishler, Paul C. (1999). Raising Reds. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231110456. 
  
• Rosenberg, Daniel (2008). Underground Communists in the McCarthy Period: A Family Memoir. Edwin Mellen Press . ISBN 077344842X. 

References

1. ^ Kaplan, Judy and Shapiro, Linn (1998). Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left
   . University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252067258. http://books.google.com/books?id=SFZ2t1ojGo8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Red+Diapers:+Growing+Up+in+the+Communist+Left&ei=ywtlSdKGJISUzATQqZzlDQ#PPA2,M1
   . "In this anthology, we define red diaper babies as children of CP members, children of former CP members, and children whose parents never became members of ..." 
   
2. ^ Kornbluth, Josh (1996). Red Diaper Baby: Three Comic Monologues (With Mathematics of Change and Haiku Tunnel)
   . Mercury House. ISBN 1562790870. http://books.google.com/books?id=XmPPuzfjYuIC&q
   . 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_diaper_baby"

Categories: Communist terminology | Communist Party USA

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This page was last modified on 25 June 2010 at 15:21.

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