Eva Shafran Burton (September 6, 1906November 17, 1944) was a Communist Party promoter who worked in New York and California in the early 20th century. She was known for her expertise in Marxist theory.
Biography Shafran was born in Poland or Russia in 1906.New York State Archives; Albany, New York; State Population Census Schedules, 1925; Election District: 35; Assembly District: 03; City: New York; County: Bronx; Page: 9
Description
District: A·D· 03 E·D· 35
Source Information
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State Census, 1925[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data:State population census schedules, 1925. Albany, New York: New York State Archives. She immigrated to the United States in around 1915, when she was about nine years old. At the time of the 1925 New York State census she lived in the Bronx and worked as a bookkeeper. Shafran was naturalized a citizen of the United States at the District Court for the Eastern District of New York at Brooklyn on August 25, 1925. According to her passport she was with brown hair and brown eyes.
In February 1931 she was picked up by the LAPD Red Squad as she left the CPUSA offices and "was beaten so severely by the police officers that she was admitted to a local sanitarium". She was reportedly hit over the head "with an automobile crank". According to the Chicago Daily Worker, "A couple of weeks ago she spoke at a meeting of Trade Union Unity League metal workers, and, returning home alone, was suddenly attacked by one of the patriotic thugs of that city. The gangster leaped from an automobile, struck her down with a club, and, while she was lying in the street, kicked her in the mouth and knocked out all of her front teeth. She was in a hospital for ten days, but is now improved." In 1938 she worked as a millinery worker in Los Angeles and lived with her brother, Abe Shafran, a furrier, and his wife on Cummings Street.California State Library; Sacramento, California; Great Register of Voters, 1900-1968
Source Information
Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2017.
Name
Miss Eva Shafran
Residence Date
1938
Street Address
527# N Cummings St. millinery
Residence Place
Los Angeles, California, USA
Party Affiliation
Cst
Occupation
Worker All three were registered to vote Communist Party.
A California state legislature investigation into Communism in California, published in 1945, put a spotlight on Shafran's biography:
California Communist Dorothy Ray Healey recalled in the 1970s, "I became a part of what in the post-Browder period was derisively called the Gods' Committee. That was the Communists who were in the top leadership of the CIO, who had a group together; it was mainly a class, as a matter of fact, taught by a woman by the name of Eva Shafran who died in '45. Really a wonderful woman, the only woman I've ever known who could take a current question and relate it back to Marxist classics."
Shafran was struck and killed by a streetcar in November 1944. At the time of her death her husband Don A. Burton was serving as a sergeant in the U.S. armed forces in China. Her friends organized a memorial in her honor.
References
Sources
Further reading Finding Aid for the Reuben W. Borough papers, ca. 1880–1973: "Literature of the Left: The Story of Eva Shafran"