Sam Moskowitz
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Sam Moskowitz (1920-1997) was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer. As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized science fiction clubs in the New York City area. While still in his teens, he became chairman of the first World Science Fiction Convention (or Worldcon) held in New York City in 1939. At this time, Moskowitz had an association with Donald A. Wollheim in the NYC science fiction clubs, but Wollheim's desire of an overt political direction for science fiction fandom caused a rift between the two (they later mended fences years later).
Moskowitz later worked professionally in the science fiction field. He edited Science Fiction Plus, a short-lived genre magazine owned by Hugo Gernsback, in 1953. He compiled about two dozen anthologies, and a few single-author collections, most published in the 1960s and early 1970s. Moskowitz also wrote a handful of short stories (3 published in 1941, 1 in 1953, 3 in 1956). His most enduring work is likely to be his writing on the history of science fiction, particular two collections of short author biographies, Explorers Of The Infinite and Seekers Of Tomorrow. While Moskowitz has been justly criticized for eccentrically assigning priorities and tracing influences regarding particular themes and ideas based principally on publication dates, his exhaustive cataloguing of early sf magazine stories by important genre authors remains the best resource for nonspecialists.
Moskowitz's most popular work may be The Immortal Storm, a historical review of internecine strife within fandom. Moskowitz wrote it in a bombastic style which made the events he described seem so important that, as another fan historian quipped, "If read directly after a history of World War II, it does not seem like an anticlimax."
First Fandom, an organization of science fiction fans active before 1940, gives an award in Moskowitz' memory each year at the World Science Fiction Convention.