(June 30, 1920-April 15, 1997) was one of the creators of fandom, a member of First Fandom, chairman of the first Worldcon, writer, critic, book and fanzine collector, and historian of the field. In mundane life, he was for many years editor of the trade publications Quick Frozen Foods and Quick Frozen Foods International.
As a teenager, he organized a branch of the Science Fiction League around the same time Donald A. Wollheim and others were organizing the Futurians. The Futurians' Marxism conflicted with Moskowitz's focus on sf and fandom and at age 19, when he became chairman of the first Worldcon in New York City in 1939, he barred several Futurians from the convention because they threatened to disrupt it, an event usually called the Exclusion Act.
In 1953 Moskowitz later edited Science-Fiction Plus, a prozine owned by Hugo Gernsback. In the 60s and 70s he edited two dozen anthologies, and a few single-author collections, but his most enduring work is likely to be his writing on the history of science fiction, in particular two collections of short author biographies, Explorers of the Infinite and Seekers of Tomorrow, as well as Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of “The Scientific Romance” in the Munsey Magazines.
His most popular work is undoubtedly The Immortal Storm, a historical review of internecine warfare within fandom. It was written with so much over-the-top seriousness that, as fellow fan historian Harry Warner, Jr. said, "If read directly after a history of World War II, it does not seem like an anticlimax."
He was married to Dr. Christine Haycock (Chris Moskowitz).
He was Mystery Guest at the Clevention and GoH at DeepSouthCon 9.
