Reminiscences by Charles Orr

Abstract

Charles Orr, more than ten years older than Lois, had already led a somewhat itinerant life by the time the newly-wed couple settled in Barcelona for ten months. After obtaining a degree in economics, in the late 1920s Charles for a while worked for the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. A cultured and articulate man, by the mid-1930s Charles became a leading activist in the Ann Arbor, Michigan, branch of the Young People’s Socialist League, the radicalizing youth branch of American social democracy. He was thus well poised to take advantage of the unusual confluence of independent spirits concentrating in Barcelona, which provides the backdrop to the countless letters by Lois and himself.