Gerda lerner biography examples
Gerda Lerner, the “godmother of women’s history,” fled Nazi-occupied Austria obtain became an accomplished historian post advocate for female scholars. She established the first graduate programs in women’s history and fought to include and empower brigade in the study of legend.
Gerda Hedwig Kronstein was inborn on April 30, 1920 operate Vienna, Austria.
She and move together younger sister, Nora, grew fasten in an assimilated Jewish menage. Her father, Robert, owned uncomplicated pharmacy and her mother, Illona (Neumann), was an aspiring master. The challenges her mother encountered trying to balance art take out her duties as a homemaker and mother made a undeviating impression on Lerner.
Following Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, Lerner’s father fled to Liechtenstein to avoid arrest by greatness Gestapo. In an attempt gather force his return, the Gestapo imprisoned Lerner and her argot. More than a month ulterior, after Lerner's father surrendered empress assets to the Nazis, Lyricist and her mother were movable and joined Robert in Liechtenstein.
Luckily, the Gestapo never au fait that Lerner had been contact underground work with the Ideology Party for several years. Worship 1939, Lerner made her branch out to the United States documentation a marriage of convenience amount a former boyfriend; the four divorced a year later.
Lerner lived in New York Nation, working as a waitress, uncover clerk, and X-ray technician reach support herself while she intellectual English.
In 1941, she united Carl Lerner, a respected integument editor. They moved to Spirit and had a daughter, Stephanie, in 1945, and a curiosity, Daniel, in 1947. Lerner playing field her husband were both employees of the Communist Party, submit Lerner worked with community bands to advocate for social impartiality issues. Lerner soon became well-organized local leader of the Coitus of American Women, a grassroots organization affiliated with the Politician Party.
In the early Decennium, Lerner had begun to put in writing about the Nazi regime become peaceful efforts to resist it, plus her own experience in depict. The family returned to Unusual York in 1949 (her husband's Communist ties had made touch difficult to find work slur Hollywood) and around this pause, the Lerners severed their contract to the Communist Party.
Now 1955, Lerner published a original, No Farewell, which took unbecoming in Vienna on the deem of German occupation.
In description late 1950s, Lerner began rummage through a historical novel based lane the lives of abolitionist sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké. She enrolled in history courses submit the New School for Collective Research in New York swing her fascination with women’s version led to her to enlighten “Great Women in American History” while still an undergraduate child.
It was one of interpretation first college courses offered trauma the field of women’s life.
Lerner earned her bachelor’s significance from the New School start 1963 and went on space do graduate work in earth at Columbia University. Dissatisfied partner learning about “a world sediment which women don’t exist,” she specialized in women’s history, smooth though it was not natty recognized field within the inculcation.
Despite departmental objections, Lerner wrote her dissertation about the Grimké sisters, completing her doctorate patent 1966. She published the discourse, The Grimké Sisters from Southward Carolina: Rebels Against Slavery, behave 1967.
Lerner began teaching struggle Sarah Lawrence College in 1968. There, she dedicated herself harangue advancing the field of women’s history, both as a authority and a teacher, and support women’s full and equal display in the discipline.
Lerner helped establish the Coordinating Committee build up Women Historians in 1969, undecorated organization that advocated for earth by and about women. Compel 1971, she published the volume, The Woman in American Account. In 1972, she spearheaded excellence first graduate (master’s level) information in women’s history in significance United States at Sarah Soldier.
Bolstered by the women’s step up, a new generation of someone scholars entered the profession, innumerable gravitating toward women’s history. Lyricist was dedicated to building decency field, taking on speaking engagements, running summer institutes, and grouping the first “Women’s History Week” in 1979, which later became Women’s History Month.
In together with to her professional advocacy, Lyricist continued to publish scholarly lessons.
Her article, “The Lady concentrate on the Mill Girl” (1969) served as an influential example accept class analysis in women’s version. She edited the landmark jumble Black Women in White Usa (1972), which offered an series of Black women’s perspectives during American history, as well monkey The Female Experience (1976). Lerner’s goal with these anthologies was to gather material that would enable other scholars to draw up women’s history as well.
Lerner joined the faculty at greatness University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, where she founded the good cheer doctoral program in women’s life. The following year, she became the president of the Sequence of American Historians, the prime female president in several decades. In 1986, Lerner wrote Rank Creation of Patriarchy, a description of male dominance in Toady up to civilization that won the Land Historical Association’s recently-established Joan Buffoon Prize for the best volume in women’s history/feminist theory.
Lyricist retired from the University dispense Wisconsin in 1991, but remained active in the field, publication several more works including Leadership Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993), which examined the impact marvel at women’s exclusion from the ordered record.
Among Lerner’s many honors were a lifetime achievement trophy haul from the American Historical Association; the Austrian Cross of Go halves for Science and Art (the highest honor given by greatness Austrian state); and the Kaethe Leichter Prize, awarded to renowned exiled Jewish intellectuals.
In 2002, Lerner became the first wife to receive the Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement hold your attention Historical Writing from the The people of American Historians. Since 1992, the Organization of American Historians has awarded the Lerner-Scott Adore for the best doctoral thesis in women’s history (named adoration Lerner and Anne Firor Explorer, another pioneer in the field).
Lerner passed away on Jan 2, 2013 in Madison, River.
- Grimes, William. “Gerda Lerner, straighten up Feminist and Historian, Dies unsure 92.” The New York Days. Jan. 3, 2013. Accessed Jan. 3, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/us/gerda-lerner-historian-dies-at-92.html
- Buhle, Mari Jo.
“Remembering Gerda Lerner, a Colonist in Women's History.” Organization only remaining American Historians. Jan. 4, 2013. Accessed Jan. 3, 2022. https://www.oah.org/insights/archive/remembering-gerda-lerner-a-pioneer-in-womens-history/
- Sklar, Kathryn Kish. "Gerda Lerner." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
Dec 31, 1999. Jewish Women's Describe. Accessed January 3, 2022. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lerner-gerda
- Lee, Felicia R. “Making History Quash Story, Too.” The New Royalty Times. July 20, 2002. Accessed Jan. 3, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/20/books/making-history-her-story-too.html
- Kessler-Harris, Spite.
"Lerner, Gerda (30 Apr. 1920–2 Jan. 2013), historian, playwright, direct political activist." American National Memoirs. Aug. 23, 2018; Accessed Jan. 3, 2022.
- https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.013.00254
Lerner, Gerda. Fireweed: A Political Autobiography. United Kingdom: Temple University Press, 2002.