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From Iowa to Soviet Siberia: The Zimmerman Steel Journey III

How did a man from Iowa help launch the Soviet steel industry? What was it like for American engineers to work side by side with Russian workers in the 1930s? Who did Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev greet as an old friend when he visited Iowa in 1959? Read on to find out the answers.

In 1931, Henry Zimmerman of Lone Tree, Iowa traveled to Kuznetsk, Siberia, to oversee the building of steel mills in the Soviet Union. The University of Iowa Special Collections has been collaborating with Russian History doctoral student Irina Rezhapova (Kuzbass Institute of the Federal Penal Service) on a special digital project which tells the story of Zimmerman’s journey. Special Collection will be making available online Henry Zimmerman’s personal letters and scrapbooks of photographs, news clippings and ephemera about his time in Soviet Siberia – all part of our Records of the Zimmerman Steel Company (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC900/MsC850/zimmermansteelworks.html).

This is Entry 3 of 3 of the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

What did the Americans and Russians do for fun?

Pictures from Henry Zimmerman’s Siberian photo album

It seems that the Western advisers were quite active in their leisure time. “Foreigners were fond of sports, music and dances. Walks in the country were practiced in summer. ‘Their favorite place was the River Tom and parks,’ recalled Raisa Khazanova. Excursions on Kuznetskstroj were arranged for foreigners and they were also carried to the nearest industrial cities, such as Prokopevsk.” (O.A. Belousova, “Foreign Experts and the Soviet Reality: Life of the First Kuznetsk Builders.” 2003, translation by Irina Rezhapova)

What kinds of relationships did the Americans and the Russians have with each other?

Top: The Freyn Engineering Company in Leningrad. Bottom: The Freyn Engineering Company in Kuznetsk. Photos via Irina Rezhapova from the magazine The USSR under Construction, 1932. State Archive of the Kemerovo Region.

Pictures suggest that like Henry Zimmerman, some of the Western steel specialists took their families with them to Siberia. Some were likely single men. While there is no direct evidence of intimate relationships between Western engineers and Soviet workers, they were likely collegial, and may have even become friends.

Sketch titled “Our Trip to Gourievsk. To Mr. Zimmerman from his interpreter with respect and compliments.”

As his Russian translator’s sketch suggests, Henry Zimmerman and his companion “Helen” took a trip to Gourievsk, presumably for him to visit another steel mill in the making. But this trip was not all work and no play. Look closely to see some of the things Zimmerman and his fellow travelers found funny and relaxing.

The Watchful Eye of Big Brother?

Clearly, for the Soviet Communist leadership, some of the relationships between the Western specialists and their Russian counterparts were too close for comfort.

“On August 16, 1931 a special “Foreign Bureau” was established. Similar bureaus worked in all large industrial centers of the USSR, including Kuznetskstroi. The Foreign Bureau wasn’t just a mediator between foreign and Soviet experts. The bureau also played the role of adaptation point. The foreign experts who arrived on building within first three-four days came to foreign bureau where they were given some explanatory talk: “where they arrived, why they were there, and how they should feel”; there was also a pep talk about household and political life.

In the beginning of 1931 the Party Committee of Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant requested that the Foreign Bureau organize for foreigners a political circle in their native language and clubs for studying Russian. Special attention was to be given to the propaganda of the Soviet system, and socialist forms of work (socialist competition).

As such high political goals were put on the Foreign Bureau, it is no wonder that its activities were watched by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). Any compromising evidence or spiteful remarks were documented; any errors in work or private life were carefully fixed.

Anfisa Kuzminichna Nikulina was the manager of the Foreign Bureau in Kuznetsk in 1932. She was born in 1901, and had a higher education degree. Since April, 1920 she had been a member of All-Union Communist Party, with no other party affiliations. Nikulina had also served in the Red Army. During her work in the Foreign Bureau at Kuznetsk, she was accused of infringement of interests of Germans in favor of Americans. Later she was expelled from the party for working for personal interests.

Previously an economist in Kuznetsk, Raisa Semenovna Khazanova became the next manager of the Foreign Bureau. According to Evtushenko, a member of the City Committee of Education, “In 1931-32 Raisa Hazanova was expelled from the Communist Party for the relations with foreigners, drinking alcohol with them, giving them prostitutes…” (O.A. Belousova, “Foreign Experts and the Soviet Reality: Life of the First Kuznetsk Builders.” 2003, translation by Irina Rezhapova)

What is the legacy of Zimmerman’s journey?

Overcoming obstacles such as the harsh Siberian weather, isolation, technological challenges, distrust and professional jealousy, Zimmerman and other Western specialists worked with their Russian partners to get the Soviet steel industry off the ground. Zimmerman came to be so highly regarded that a film was made of him working with the Soviet steel foundries (Henry Zimmerman, letter of October 11, 1966). While the emergence of the Cold War with the Soviet Union retarded technological cooperation for decades, the Russians remembered Zimmerman’s work in more than one way. In his letters from the 1960s, Zimmerman recalled that when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited Iowa in 1959, he took time to meet with Henry Zimmerman, telling him that a foundry that he built in the early 1930s was still operating perfectly. His April 17, 1971 obituary in the Davenport-Bettendorf Times-Democrat claims that “There is a monument in Red Square, Moscow, Russia, that pays tribute to Mr. Zimmerman and 50 other American engineers who showed the Russians how to develop the steel industry.”

If you liked Zimmerman’s story, you can read our finding aid here: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC900/MsC850/zimmermansteelworks.html

Please check our blog for the first two entries on the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

By Gyorgy “George” Toth, PhD Candidate in American Studies, Olson Fellow, The University of Iowa Special Collections & University Archives,
With
Irina Rezhapova, PhD Candidate, Russian History, Kuzbass Institute of the Federal Penal Service

From Iowa to Soviet Siberia: The Zimmerman Steel Journey II

In 1931, Henry Zimmerman of Lone Tree, Iowa traveled to Kuznetsk, Siberia, to oversee the building of steel mills in the Soviet Union. The University of Iowa Special Collections has been collaborating with Russian History doctoral student Irina Rezhapova (Kuzbass Institute of the Federal Penal Service) on a special digital project which tells the story of Zimmerman’s journey. Special Collections will be making available online Henry Zimmerman’s personal letters and scrapbooks of photographs, news clippings and ephemera about his time in Soviet Siberia – all part of our Records of the Zimmerman Steel Company (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC900/MsC850/zimmermansteelworks.html).

This is Entry 2 of 3 of the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

“Foreign Specialists” in the Soviet Union: Exchanges of Technology and Work Ethic

The kinds of exchanges that took place in Siberia between the “foreign specialists” – experts from the US, Germany, Italy, France, Austria and Romania – and the Soviet workers, servants and administrators involved much more than one-way technology transfer. Planning and working side by side, steel experts from these countries also exchanged ideas and attitudes about labor. Thus Henry Zimmerman, who probably brought with him a strong individualist American work ethic which he acquired from his father’s business and other US companies, was now exposed to a Soviet work ethic that emphasized labor as an achievement and sacrifice for the collective: the ruling Communist Party and the future of Communism in Russia. In this Soviet work ethic, the individual’s achievement was valued not in its own right, but as another example of the supremacy of the working class of the Soviet people, and of Communism as a political and economic system. Soviet mines, factories and steel plants organized “socialist competitions” between working brigades in making bricks, loading coal, completing buildings or molding steel in larger quantities or well ahead of their original deadlines. The winners of such competitions received awards such as the designation “foremost worker,” vacations, and appearances at national holidays, political parades and historical commemorations.

Even without being able to read Russian, we can see that the images in this 1932 article were posed to make Soviet workers appear heroic people who move mountains in building a robust new industry out of nothing for the glory of the Soviet Union.

Pages from a Russian magazine article about the construction of the steel mills in 1932

Was there harmony in the workplace between American engineers and Russian workers?

Hardly. In addition to the harsh weather and the differences in work ethic, Western specialists like Henry Zimmerman also faced professional rivalry from Soviet engineers and workers, who had strong national and occupational pride. “The Russian engineers insisted that they could do the various jobs themselves. They refused to follow our instructions. We pulled off of one job because of this, and they went ahead and caused an accident that killed 32 men. [….] We later organized our own bunch to keep the Russians out of our hair. All our recommendations were typewritten, and they stuck their necks out if they didn’t follow them. We got good cooperation from the [Soviet] government.” (“Personality Profile: Ageless Wizard is still Going Strong,” by Jim Arpy, Sunday Times-Democrat July 26, 1964)

Did the Soviets try to convert the Americans to Communism?

You bet! The Soviet leadership not only wanted to acquire technological expertise from the Western advisers, but they also wanted to educate their guests in the ideology of Marxism – hoping to convert them to the Soviet political and economic system. Accordingly, Russian officials included Communist propaganda in their briefings and lectures for Western advisers, as well as Russian language courses and group discussions of technology and life in the Soviet Union.

Were U.S. and other Western specialists successfully indoctrinated with Communist ideology? Even Russian researchers are doubtful about the outcome. “[Western experts] had a double attitude towards political messages: some were listened to, especially if reports were read in their native language, but others were ignored.” (O.A. Belousova, “Foreign Experts and the Soviet Reality: Life of the First Kuznetsk Builders.” 2003, translation by Irina Rezhapova) Do you think that they managed to convince Henry Zimmerman that Communism was the best political and economic system?

Please check our blog for the first and the third entry of the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

From Iowa to Soviet Siberia: The Zimmerman Steel Journey I

In 1931, Henry Zimmerman of Lone Tree, Iowa traveled to Kuznetsk, Siberia, to oversee the building of steel mills in the Soviet Union. The University of Iowa Special Collections has been collaborating with Russian History doctoral student Irina Rezhapova (Kuzbass Institute of the Federal Penal Service) on a special digital project which tells the story of Zimmerman’s journey. Special Collections will be making available online Henry Zimmerman’s personal letters and scrapbooks of photographs, news clippings and ephemera about his time in Soviet Siberia – all part of our Records of the Zimmerman Steel Company (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC900/MsC850/zimmermansteelworks.html).

This is ENTRY 1 of 3 of the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

Who was Henry L. Zimmerman, the Steel Maker of Iowa?

Photograph of the men of the Zimmerman family, 1910s. Henry Zimmerman is bottom right.

Born in Davenport in 1879, Henry L. Zimmerman took an early interest in the family foundry business run by his father, and by the mid-1910s he helped expand the Lone Tree and Bettendorf-based Zimmerman Steel Company into electrification, waterworks, and steel works, exporting steel products as far as Russia, Japan and Australia.

“A Personal Word from the Father of the Zimmerman Family.” Advertising brochure of the Zimmerman Steel Company, 1910s.

In 1929 The Santa Fe Railway hired Henry Zimmerman as foundry engineer, in which capacity he traveled from the Mississippi to the Eastern Seaboard, inspecting the company’s plants, taking care of problems and working to make the plants more efficient and productive. This experience may have been the reason why the Freyn Engineering Company soon selected Henry Zimmerman as their chief foundry engineer, one of fifty-seven specialists chosen to establish modern steel mills in Soviet Russia. For people like Henry Zimmerman, a trip to the Soviet Union probably also held the promise of international professional experience, as well as an exotic adventure.

What were the living and working conditions in Siberia like?

Pictures from Henry Zimmerman’s Siberian photo album

When Henry L. Zimmerman arrived at Kuznetsk, Siberia on January 7, 1931, the local temperature was so cold that the heating plants and water mains buried under ground froze and burst. Zimmerman spent the first few weeks in a hotel where “we’d go to bed wearing our caps and mittens, everything but our boots.” (“Personality Profile: Ageless Wizard is still Going Strong,” by Jim Arpy, Sunday Times-Democrat July 26, 1964)

Once the Americans were scheduled to go to Kuznetsk to build the Kuznetsk Steel Mill, with Zimmerman among them, the Soviets began to build wooden houses for them, which may have been rather spacious. The “foreigners” had a special service – stores with a better variety of goods and somebody playing the role of servants who cleaned their rooms. Some of the apartments not occupied by the foreign specialists were used to accommodate some of the front-rank Soviet workers. According to Russian workers’ memoirs, each apartment served as a home for three people: one in the living room, another in the kitchen, and the third one sleeping in the bathroom. They were satisfied, because other workers lived in worse conditions. (From Irina Rezhapova)

The harsh winter weather of Siberia posed special challenges to those building the steel mills. In a letter of March 15, 1931, Zimmerman asked his son Jimmy to

“Try to picture, what a job it has been to dig all these […] deep pits for the foundation, thru two to three meters of frost when the thermometer was from -40° C to -60° C and the River frozen six feet deep. Frequently it would freeze 6″ to 10″ in a single night, even at the bottom of the pits if they were not covered. We had to plank each pit over and cover it with earth, put in a stove and keep a fire in each pit while the concrete was poured and set.”

How did Kuznetskostroy become a Soviet steel boom town?

“Twelve months ago this was a cold, barren, frozen waste, covered with snow and only the howl of the wolf was heard as he chased the Siberian rabbit. Now in dugouts, tents, loghouses and modern homes thirty thousand people live and all have all the work they can do and about 500 more come each week.” (Henry Zimmerman, letter of March 15, 1931)

Russian magazine article from the early 1930s about the building of the Kuznetsk steel mill

“To describe the work here would take too long except that we are building a group of factories and a city like Gary, Ind[iana] and including everything that is needed in such an industry. In the foundry, which will make iron, steel, brass, and aluminum […] This brick yard will be the most modern and most complete in the whole world, and will make common brick, pressed brick, fire brick, silica brick and fire clay suitable for each [.]” (Henry Zimmerman, letter of January 16, 1931)

Please check our blog for the second and third entry of the Zimmerman Steel Journey.

George Viereck: Diplomat or Propagandist?

This year’s National History Day theme is “Diplomacy and Debate: Successes, Failures, and Consequences.” One collection in our holdings that dramatizes this theme is the George Sylvester Viereck Papers (http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsc100/MsC99/MsC99_viereckgeorge.htm). As a German American poet, cultural critic and journalist, Viereck played the role of a cultural diplomat and propagandist in the debate and conflict between the United States and Germany before and during World War One and Two – even when he had to pay a high price for it.

George Sylvester Viereck was born in Munich on December 31, 1884, and was brought to the United States at the age of eleven. Viereck’s first book of poetry, Ninevah and Other Poems, was published in 1907. He also wrote Strangest Friendship: Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House, and, with Paul Eldridge, My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew, Salome, the Wandering Jewess, and Glimpses of the Great, among other books.

By the time World War I broke out, Viereck had been already fairly well known for his verse, which appeared in both liberal and conservative periodicals in the United States. Viereck first came under attack for pro-German leanings as editor of the magazine Fatherland in 1914. When the United States entered the war, he changed its name to The American Monthly and turned its teachings against war in general. He urged that the objections of German-born Americans against shedding their relatives’ blood be respected by having them serve in some other capacity than as soldiers in the trenches. The Author’s League, the Poetry Society, and other organizations expelled him, but after war sentiment dissipated he began to appear again on lecture platforms.

Before World War II Viereck worked as a correspondent for a Munich newspaper and a free-lance writer for American magazines. He once described himself as doing what he could to better relations between the United States and Germany.

On the walls of his Riverside Drive study in New York he had photographs of Hitler, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and Kaiser Wilhelm. All three, he said in an interview, had been his friends. “But I am no longer on speaking terms with some of them,” he added. In 1929 he had written of Hitler, “This man, if he lives, will make history.”

George Viereck was arrested in New York in October 1941 on charges of withholding from the US State Department information about his pro-German propaganda activities. He was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Viereck and his lawyer appealed his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Pages from Brief for Petitioner in Viereck v. the United States, US Supreme Court, October 1942

After his first appeal to the Supreme Court failed, George Viereck began serving his term of one to five years on July 31 1943 in the Federal Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. His lawyer kept working on another appeal.

Viereck's statement before sentencing, July 31, 1943

Eventually, the US Supreme Court reversed Viereck’s conviction on the grounds that he was not compelled to report his activities “except as an agent of a foreign government.” After serving three years and ten months in prison, George Viereck was released on May 17, 1947.

George Sylvester Viereck died at Mount Holyoke Hospital on March 18, 1962, at the age of 77.

Please check out the online finding aid of the George Sylvester Viereck Papers here:

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsc100/MsC99/MsC99_viereckgeorge.htm

UI alumni heed the Homecoming call

Ah, homecoming: A nearly century-old UI football ritual with more traditions than you can punt, pass or kick. A few of them are described in the October “Old Gold,” a monthly feature by university archivist David McCartney for Spectator@Iowa, a publication of the Office of University Relations for alumni and friends of the University of Iowa:

http://spectator.uiowa.edu/2010/october/oldgold.html

Hoover Collection of Science Fiction Fanzines

Special Collections announces a new and valuable addition to its growing collections of zines and of science fiction fandom-related materials: the Debbie Hoover Fanzine Collection. Hoover is a longtime SF fan based in Salem, Oregon who has graciously donated her collection of fan fiction, which spans from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

Fan fiction has long been a popular method by which fans of a particular book, movie, or television series interact with the universes portrayed in those media in a creative way. Fans frequently will write stories or poems, or create artwork, that chronicle new adventures in the lives of their favorite characters or shine new light on those characters’ inner lives.

Most of the Hoover Collection’s materials concern the first incarnation of the Star Trek television series (1966-1969). Other significant portions of the collection are based around the cult science fiction TV shows The Sentinel (1996-1999) and Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007). Media with smaller number of zines written about them include the Star Wars movie series (1977-2005), and the TV shows Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1993-1997) and Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979). Even smaller numbers of zines involve other movies and television shows.

The Hoover Collection is an important source of information on the social phenomenon of science fiction fandom, which has achieved an important place in American popular culture in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The media chronicled in the Hoover materials (as well as in the Libraries’ other fandom-related archival collections) have been significant in the lives and hearts of many people; the Hoover collection preserves the creative impact that these media have on their fans. – Jeremy Brett, Project Archivist

Below: This zine was produced in 1980, between the release of the first and second Star Wars films. Star Wars fan fiction began production as early as the late 1970s, as soon as the Star Wars phenomenon exploded into popular culture. SW fiction is interesting as an example of the ways in which dedicated fans try on their own to explore what may only have been hinted at in the original product. Fans enthusiastically expanded on character backgrounds, plot back stories, and other aspects of the SW universe, many of which, of course, were “officially” negated after the release of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005).

“It is a dangerous thing to make presents to poets”

Special Collections has recently acquired a new letter to add to the Brewer-Leigh Hunt Collection. This letter, written by Leigh Hunt to Vincent Novello in 1816, highlights Hunt’s close relationship with the noted composer and serves as a primary example of Hunt’s early correspondence. In it, Hunt talks of visiting Novello and of the gifts ladies send him, to which he declares “…it is a dangerous thing to make presents to poets.” Hunt’s extensive correspondence reveals an intimate knowledge of literary, artistic, political, and religious ideas circulating in the first half of nineteenth-century Britain. Visit the digital collection Leigh Hunt Letters to learn more about Hunt’s life and career, and to take a closer look at this letter as well as over 1600 other examples of Hunt’s extensive correspondence. The letter is reproduced below. – Anne Covell, Robert A. Olson Fellow 2008-2010, Special Collections & University Archives

Corkhill Civil War Diary

There are many Civil War diaries throughout Special Collections. Some are part of a collection of papers, while others are bound. There is a guide available that provides some details, and increasing numbers of Civil War diaries and documents are being digitized. Our goal is to have full digital access to all of our Civil War material in time for the Sesquicentennial in 2011.

Recently Special Collections received a donation that adds to this collection of Civil War resources. Through the efforts of Sharon Barker Hannon, on behalf of her family, a diary written by her great-great-grandfather, Rev. Thomas Corkhill, now resides in Special Collections. Corkhill wrote his diary in a commonplace book, and it is filled with religious poetry and commentary in addition to diary entries relating his experiences as Chaplain to the 25th Regiment of Iowa Infantry Volunteers, commissioned September 30, 1862. This diary will also be digitized as part of our ongoing efforts. – Greg Prickman, Assistant Head, Special Collections & University Archives

John Gawsworth Notebooks

Special Collections has purchased additional materials to add to the John Gawsworth Papers. Gawsworth was a poet and leader of the neo-Georgian movement in Britain. He was also the second king of Redonda. As a poet he peaked early and at the age of 26 was the youngest member of the Royal Society. He fell from favor and died homeless and impoverished. Our original collection was comprised of his later writings, after drink had diminished his capacity. These works are virtually all unpublished. This new addendum is from his earlier days and presumably show more vigor. Included are several notebook journals from his days in the RAF and, as the bookseller says they are “. . . especially valuable for the light they cast on the frontline wartime activities of a sensitive and deeply-poetic sensibility. “ He was stationed in Northern Africa, Italy, and India and everywhere he went he studied the literature of the region, and there are lists of books and authors. Especially complete is his survey of North African authors. Also included are holograph print versions of many of his poems. – Jacque Roethler, Special Collections Assistant

The 1922 Fiji-New Zealand Expedition: A Tale of Two Journal Entries

During the summer of 1922, a group of University of Iowa faculty and graduate students with interests in the natural sciences embarked upon a four-month expedition to the South Pacific. Under the leadership of Prof. Charles C. Nutting of the Department of Zoology, the group visited the island nations of Fiji and New Zealand, gathering observations and specimens pertinent to their respective disciplines.

Prof. Nutting chronicled the expedition in a 1924 report, published as an installment of University of Iowa Studies in Natural History (v. X, no. 5; call no. QH1.I58). Based on its thorough index, the report covers a wide range of research interests, including anthropology, archaeology, botany, entomology, and zoology.

Recently, Special Collections & University Archives received additional documentation of this adventure from the perspective of Waldo Glock, then a graduate student in geology. (Mr. Glock would go on to a distinguished academic career at The Ohio State University.) His son, Waldo Glock, Jr., donated to the Archives his father’s scrapbook, journal, and a set of over 200 lantern slides recounting the journey.

We’ll leave the academic researching of this new collection to, well, the researchers. We couldn’t help but note, however, the journal entries for the voyagers’ last day at sea – September 2, 1922. First, Prof. Nutting’s official account:

“The sea became rather ‘lumpy’ as we neared the American coast. There was much drinking on board as the passengers were taking advantage of their last chance before reaching prohibition territory. There seemed to be little effort to restrain them and they kept up a veritable ‘rough house’ nearly all night with a good deal of profane and even indecent language.”

And now for graduate student Glock’s account:

“The Smoke room, scene of hilarity! Bottles of Scotch and glasses were everywhere. Norton was flushed of face and glassy eyed; Polly was follish drunk; Walsh was wild-eyed and red; Mong oozy eyed; Haines perfectly silly; Mrs. Brandeis itching for greater revels; Myrtle knew enuf to stop; Owen began to stagger… 2:30 a.m. they fell back exhausted, an incoherent mumble the last spark from the battered frames. Once having started there is no stopping, on and on, more, more – more, to the bitter end.”

And there you have it: Two accounts from two perspectives. While official records present evidence of an event, there is nothing like a diary to bring out the details. – David McCartney, University Archivist