Fireweed: A Political Autobiography
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002. Presumed first edition/first printing. Trade paperback. xiii, [1], 377, [7] p. Illustrations. A Note on Usage. In "Fireweed", Gerda Lerner, a pioneer and leading scholar in women's history, tells her story of moral courage and commitment to social change with a novelist's skill and a historian's command of context. Lerner's memoir focuses on the formative experiences that made her an activist for social justice before her academic career began. The child of a well-to-do Viennese Jewish family, she was still a teenager when a fascist regime came to power in 1934, and she became involved in the underground resistance movement. The Nazi takeover of Austria cast her into prison, then forced her and her family into exile; she alone was able to leave Europe. Once in the United States, she experienced the harshness of the Depression and despair over the fate of her family. Still, she persisted in adapting to the new culture and to becoming a writer. Here she met and married her life-long partner, Carl Lerner, a film editor and director. Together they become deeply involved in left-wing activities, from struggling to unionize the film industry and resisting the blacklist in Hollywood to community organizing for peace, for an interracial civil rights movement, and for better schools in New York City. Lerner insists that her decades of grassroots organizing largely account for the theoretical insights she was later able to bring to the development of women's history. In "Fireweed", Lerner presents her life in the context of the major historical events of the twentieth century and the repression of dissent. Hers is a gripping story about surviving hardship and summoning the courage to live according to one's convictions. The author's note: Gerda Lerner, a past president of the Organization of American Historians, is Robinson-Edwards Professor of History, Emerita, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her eleven books in history include "Creation of Patriarchy", "Creation of Feminist Consciousness", "Why History Matters", and "Black Women in White America: A Documentary History". From Wikipedia: "Gerda Lerner (April 30, 1920 January 2, 2013) was a historian, author and teacher. She was a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. Lerner was one of the founders of the field of women's history, and was a former president of the Organization of American Historians. She played a key role in the development of women's history curricula. She taught what is considered to be the first women's history course in the world at the New School for Social Research in 1963. She was also involved in the development of similar programs at Long Island University (1965 1967), at Sarah Lawrence College from 1968 to 1979 (where she established the nation's first Women's History graduate program), at Columbia University (where she was a co-founder of the Seminar on Women), and since 1980 as Robinson Edwards Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She also wrote the screenplay for her husband Carl Lerner s film Black Like Me (1966)....When Lerner first moved to New York, she worked as a waitress, salesperson, office clerk, and x-ray technician, all the while writing fiction and poetry; she published two short stories providing a first-person account of the Nazi occupation. After her divorce from Jensen, she met and married Carl Lerner, a young theater director who was active with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). In the 1940s she was active in the Congress of American Women (CAW, a women's group concerned with economic and social issues), helping to found the Los Angeles chapter in 1946. In 1951, she collaborated with poet Eve Merriam on a musical, The Singing of Women. Her novel, No Farewell, appeared in 1955; with her husband, she wrote the script for Black Like Me. Committed Communists, the Lerners were involved in numerous grassroots activities involving trade unionism, civil rights, and anti-militarism; they struggled against McCarthyism, especially the Hollywood blacklist. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Gender Studies, Feminism, Political Activist, Labor Unions, Civil Rights, Holocaust, Prisoners, Grassroots
ISBN: 9781592132362
[Book #66966]
Price: $45.00