Norbert Guterman (1900-1984) was a scholar, and translator of scholarly and literary works from French, Polish and Latin into English. Born in Warsaw, Guterman attended the University of Warsaw, where he studied psychology. He moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, where he continued his studies in psychology, receiving degrees in 1922 and 1923. In the 1930s, Guterman worked closely with French Marxist theorist Henri Lefebvre in popularizing the Marxist notions of alienation and mystification. He published translations of Marx's early works, which were often the first publications of these works in any language. Guterman, who was Jewish, moved to the United States in 1933, where he took on translation work for the Monthly Review, eventually becoming an editor.

Leo Löwenthal (1900 - 1993) was a German sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School. He joined the newly founded Institute for Social Research in 1926 and quickly became its leading expert on the sociology of literature and mass culture as well as the managing editor of the journal it launched in 1932, the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. When the Nazis came to power, he fled to the USA. After seven years as research director of the Voice of America, he joined the Berkeley Speech Department in 1956 and shortly thereafter the Department of Sociology.