Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner

UW-Madison portrait, 1981
Born Gerda Hedwig Kronstein
(1920-04-30)April 30, 1920
Vienna, Austria
Died January 2, 2013(2013-01-02) (aged 92)
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Nationality American
Education New School for Social Research (A.B.), Columbia University (M.A.) and (Ph.D.)
Spouse(s) Carl Lerner

Gerda Hedwig Lerner (née Kronstein; April 30, 1920 – January 2, 2013) was an Austrian-born American historian and author. In addition to her numerous scholarly publications, she wrote poetry, fiction, theater pieces, screenplays, and an autobiography. She served as president of the Organization of American Historians in 1980-81 and in 1980 was appointed Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she taught until retiring in 1991.

Lerner was one of the founders of the field of women's history. In 1963, while still an undergraduate at the New School for Social Research, she taught "Great Women in American History", which is considered to be the first regular college course on women's history offered anywhere.[1]

She taught at Long Island University from 1965-67. She played a key role in the development of women's history curricula and was involved in the development of degree programs in women's history at Sarah Lawrence College (where she taught from 1968 to 1979 and established the nation's first master's degree program in women's history) and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she launched the first Ph.D. program in women's history. She also worked at Duke University and Columbia University, where she was a co-founder of the Seminar on Women.

Early life

She was born Gerda Hedwig Kronstein in Vienna, Austria on April 30, 1920, the first child of Ilona (née Neumann) and Robert Kronstein, an affluent Jewish couple. Her father was a pharmacist, and her mother an artist, with whom Gerda, according to her autobiography, had a strained relationship as a child. She had a sister and they attended local schools and gymnasium. Following the 1938 Anschluss, Kronstein became involved with the anti-Nazi resistance; she was jailed for six weeks that year, occupying a cell with two Christian women held on political grounds. They shared their prison food with her because Jews received restricted rations.[2][3] Her family was able to emigrate from Austria because her father had opened a branch of the family business in Liechtenstein, Switzerland, where he stayed. Her mother moved to France, and Lerner's sister relocated to Palestine. In 1939, Gerda immigrated to the United States under the sponsorship of the family of her socialist fiance, Bobby Jensen.[4]

Career

Settling in New York, Kronstein married Jensen; she worked in a variety of jobs as a waitress, salesperson, office clerk, and X-ray technician, while also writing fiction and poetry. She published two short stories featuring first-person accounts of the Nazi annexation of Austria.[5]

Her marriage with Jensen was failing when she met Carl Lerner (1912-1973), a married theater director who was a member of the Communist Party USA. They both established temporary residence in Nevada, obtaining divorces in Reno. They married and moved to Hollywood, where Carl pursued a career in film-making.[5] In 1946, Gerda Lerner helped found the L.A. chapter of the Congress of American Women, a Communist-front organization. The Lerners engaged in CPUSA activities involving trade unionism, civil rights, and anti-militarism. They suffered under the rise of McCarthyism, especially the Hollywood blacklist.

In 1951, Gerda Lerner collaborated with poet Eve Merriam on a musical, The Singing of Women. Her novel No Farewell was published in 1955. Lerner returned to New York to study at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where she received a bachelor's degree in 1963. Also in 1963, she offered the first regular college course in women's history.[6]

Lerner and her husband coauthored the screenplay of the film Black Like Me (1964), based on the book by journalist John Howard Griffin, who reported on his six weeks in the Deep South passing as a black man. Carl Lerner directed it.[7]

Lerner continued with graduate studies at Columbia University, where she earned both the M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1966). Her doctoral dissertation was published as The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery (1967), a study of a pair of sisters from a slaveholding family who became abolitionists in the North. Learning that their late brother had mixed-race sons, they helped pay to educate the boys in the North, where they attended college.

In 1966, Lerner became a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), and she served as a local and national leader for a short period. In 1968, she received her first academic appointment at Sarah Lawrence College. She founded a a Master of Arts Program in Women’s History, which Sarah Lawrence offered beginning in 1972; it was the first American graduate degree in the field.[8] Lerner also taught at Long Island University in Brooklyn.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lerner published scholarly books and articles that helped establish women's history as a recognized field of study. Her 1969 article "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson", published in the journal American Studies, was an early and influential example of class analysis in women's history. She was among the first to bring a consciously feminist lens to the study of history. Among her most important works are the documentary anthologies Black Women in White America (1972) and The Female Experience (1976), along with her essay collection, The Majority Finds Its Past (1979).

In 1979, she chaired The Women's History Institute, a fifteen-day conference (July 13–29) at Sarah Lawrence College, co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance, and the Smithsonian Institution, which was attended by leaders of national organizations for women and girls. When the Institute participants learned about the success of the Women's History Week celebrated in Sonoma County, California, they decided to initiate similar celebrations within their own organizations, communities, and school districts. They also agreed to support an effort to secure a "National Women's History Week."[9][10] This helped lead to the national establishment of Women's History Month.[9][10]

In 1980, Lerner moved to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she established the nation's first Ph.D. program in women's history. At this institution, she wrote The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993), Why History Matters (1997), and Fireweed: A Political Autobiography (2002).[11]

From 1981-82 Lerner served as president of the Organization of American Historians.[12] As an educational director for the organization, she helped make women's history accessible to leaders of women's organizations and high school teachers.[11]

In 1998 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[13] In 1986 Lerner won the American Historical Association's Joan Kelly Prize in recognition of her work on the roots of women's oppression.

Since 1992 the Organization of American Historians has awarded the annual Lerner-Scott Prize, named for her and Anne Firor Scott, to the writer of the best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women's history.[14]

Gerda Lerner c. 1984.

Selected works

Black Women in White America: A Documentary History was published in 1972. It chronicles 350 years of black women being treated as property and describes the long range effects of the slave past. It was one of the first books to detail the contributions of black women in women's history. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness was published in 1993. The book traces the roots of patriarchal dominance back to two millennia.

In The Creation of Patriarchy (1986), volume one of Women and History, Lerner ventured into prehistory, attempting to trace the roots of patriarchal dominance. Lerner provides historical, archeological, literary, and artistic evidence for the idea that patriarchy is a cultural construct. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870 (1994) is the second volume of Women and History. In this book, she reviews European culture from the seventh century through the nineteenth century, showing the limitations imposed by a male-dominated culture and the sporadic attempt to resist that domination. She examines in detail the educational deprivation of women, their isolation from many of the traditions of their societies, and the expressive outlet many women have found through writing.

Fireweed: A Political Autobiography (2003) is a detailed account of her life from childhood in Vienna to 1958, when she first began her formal studies at the New School for Social Research in New York. Lerner received many awards for her works, including the Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Historical Writing of the Society of American Historians, and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Special Book Award.

Death

Lerner died on January 2, 2013, in Madison, Wisconsin, at age 92.[15]

Other works

Musical

Screenplays

Books

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Bauer, Patricia. "Gerda Lerner | biography - Austrian-born American writer and educator". Britannica.com. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ Lehoczky, Etelka (December 18, 2002). "A historian looks back; Gerda Lerner examines a life lived in controversy--her own". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 26, 2010.
  3. ↑ Ramde, Dinesh. "Gerda Lerner: Pioneering feminist Lerner, UWI professor dies", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 4, 2013.
  4. ↑ Lerner, Gerda (2002). Fireweed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 151–200.
  5. 1 2 Lee, Felicia R. (July 20, 2002). "Making History Her Story, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved January 26, 2010.
  6. ↑ Debra Taczanowsky. "Debra Taczanowsky | Women making inroads, but still fighting for equality". Tribdem.com. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  7. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (May 21, 1964). "Black Like Me (1964) James Whitmore Stars in Book's Adaptation". The New York Times.
  8. ↑ "Master of Arts in Women's History | Sarah Lawrence College". Sarahlawrence.edu. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  9. 1 2 Jwa.org
  10. 1 2 Nqhp.org
  11. 1 2 Lee, Felicia R. (July 20, 2002). "Making History Her Story, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2016.
  12. ↑ Oah.org
  13. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter L" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
  14. ↑ Huckabee, Charles (January 3, 2013). "Gerda Lerner, Pioneering Scholar of Women's History, Dies at 92". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Gerda Lerner, Pioneering Feminist and Historian, Dies at 92". New York Times. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
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