Biography
Carl Lester was a leader of Milwaukee's South Side Unemployed Council. Police jailed him during the 1932 campaign for relief for unemployed families, raided his home and refused bail. He and five other council leaders were sentenced to jail terms for their part in the relief demonstrations. While imprisoned at the Milwaukee County House of Correction, they faced restrictions on newspapers and correspondence. The International Labor Defense campaigned for them and tried to visit them in jail.
Page 4 names Carl Lester and Ben Fifer among six South Side Unemployed Council leaders imprisoned in the Milwaukee County House of Correction after a relief demonstration. It gives forty-one months as the six prisoners' combined sentences, not an individual term for either named man. It alleges the Daily Worker, Labor Defender and The Communist were barred while Sunday commercial papers were sold. The article's wider allegations about racial segregation, forced prison work and inadequate medical care describe the institution; individual punishment dates and completed custody lengths remain unknown. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n091-NY-apr-15-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, April 15, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The December 1932 directory printed in the January 1933 Labor Defender reports Carl Lester as sentenced 1932-10-29. This is the source-reported nominal sentencing date, not an arrest, prison-admission, discharge or actual completed-duration measurement. The directory individually reports ten months imposed; this is distinct from the separate report of forty-one months combined across six prisoners.
