Mike Gold was the nom de plume of Itzok Isaac Granich. He was born on the Lower East Side of New York City to Romanian Jewish parents in 1894. His poverty stricken upbringing led him to radical politics and he took the name Mike Gold during the oppressive Palmer Raids of the twenties. Gold was a founding editor of The New Masses and worked as a columnist for the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker from 1933 until his death in 1967. His only novel, Jews without Money, published in 1930, was an immediate success and is considered the prototype of the American proletarian novel.
