Tillie Olsen`s fiction and essays have been widely and rightly acknowledged as major contributions to American literature. Her work has been particularly valued by contemporary feminists. Yet few of Olsen`s readers realize the extent to which her vision and choice of subject are rooted in an earlier literary heritage-the tradition of radical political thought, mostly socialist and anarchist, of the 1910`s and 1920`s, and the Old Left tradition of the 1930`s. I do not mean that one can adequately explain the eloquence of her work in terms of its political origins, or that left-wing politics were the single most important influence on it. My point is that its central consciousness-its profound understanding of class and gender as shaping influences on people`s lives-owes much to that earlier literary heritage, a heritage that, in general, has not been sufficiently valued by most contemporary literary critics.