Harry Golden: Bestselling author, raconteur, and advocate for civil rights with his irreverent newspaper, The Carolina Israelite Main Menu J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte

Lower East Side creates a writer

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Golden’s identity and career were forged by the sights, smells, and sounds of the Lower East Side in the early 20th century. His nostalgic, often-humorous narrative became so widely embraced that some historians have complained that it became accepted as the definitive Jewish immigration experience. 

New country, new names

Harry Golden was the very young Chaim Goldhirsch when he emerged from the lower decks of the SS Graf Waldersee in New York on March 31, 1907. Along with his mother and two sisters, he came from what was then Austria-Hungary, by way of Hamburg, to join his father and older brother. By middle age, his names had evolved from Chaim to Hyman to Herschel to Harry; Goldhirsch to Goldhurst to Golden.  

Felony on Wall Street

Harry’s oldest sister Clara was one of modern Wall Street’s first female brokers, and she hired her clever brother to write promotional materials. Harry soon had his own busy brokerage company where he energetically sold investments – and illegally pocketed the money. After a stint in federal prison, he emerged in 1933 and changed his name to Golden to hide his felonious past. The secret came out when Golden’s 1958 best-selling book Only in America made him famous overnight -- and an anonymous letter to his publisher and leading newspapers caused a national scandal. The notoriety only served to heighten his fame and sell more books.

 

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