Samuel Polinow

Little biographical information is available for Samuel Polinow, but most of what we have comes in the form of unfavorable remarks. Remembered by contemporary anarchists as “a bit of a screwball –an anarcho-moron” who drank excessively, Polinow was a regular contributor of essays and short fiction to the anarchist periodicals Road to Freedom and Man! between 1926 and 1940. The remainder of this piece has been left out to spare the reader some clumsy and corny flourishes; even the portion presented here required editing for clarity. See Avrich, Anarchist Voices, pp 420, 433. The name Max Polinoff, perhaps a brother of Samuel’s, appears as the informant on Weinberg’s certificate of death in 1939 (see Chapter 1, note 1). We seem to find this man in 1930, spelled Polinofsky, living at 2930 N Arizona Street in Philadelphia. This cigar factory worker and his wife Lena were 36, having come from Russia in 1904 and 1913 respectively. Their children Ruth, George, and Riba were 8, 6, and 4 years old. They were native Yiddish speakers who also spoke English. (1930 Federal Population Census, reel T626-3113, 13A, e.d. 690; 0261, lines 46-50). It is peculiar that although Samuel Polinow was a very prominent contributor to Man!, editor Marcus Graham omitted to describe him in his 1974 anthology of the paper.