Meridel Le Sueur
Meridel Le Sueur (born February 22, 1900 in Murray , Iowa , † November 14, 1996 in Hudson , Wisconsin ) was an American writer and suffragette .
Life
Born Meridel Wharton, she took the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, a lawyer and former socialist mayor of Minot , North Dakota .
Due to the political commitment of her parents and a. at Industrial Workers of the World and Mayme “Marian” Lucy (Meridel Le Sueur's mother) supporting the US women's rights movement , she was strongly influenced at a young age.
Le Sueur was enthusiastic about the poems and stories she heard from Indian women. She dropped out of high school and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts . For several years she worked in Hollywood as an actress, stunt woman, author and journalist. She wrote u. a. for liberal newspapers on unemployment, migrant workers, and the struggle of the indigenous people of North America for autonomy.
Like other writers of the day, including John Steinbeck , Nelson Algren and Jack Conroy , Le Sueur wrote about the struggles of the working class during the Great Depression of the 1930s. She has published articles in New Masses , American Mercury , The New Republic , Yale Review, and The American Mercury .
Her best-known books are North Star Country (1945), The History of the People of Minnesota, and the novel The Girl , which was written in the 1930s but not published until 1978. In the 1950s, Le Sueur was a communist of the McCarthy era on the "black list" and kept her head above water primarily by writing children's books. She was not noticed in public again until the 1970s, as a feminist activist who was celebrated for her writings on women's rights.
In her later years, Le Sueur lived in St. Paul , Minnesota . She was married to Harry Rice (Yasha Rubonoff) for a few years, with whom she had two children.
Works (selection)
- 1930s The Girl , Roman
- 1940 Salute to Spring , short stories
- 1945 North Star Country , poems
- 1949 Nancy Hanks of Wilderness Road: A Story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother , children's book
- 1951 Chanticleer of Wilderness Road: A Story of Davy Crockett , children's book
- 1954 The River Road: A Story of Abraham Lincoln , children's book
- 1954 Little Brother of the Wilderness: The Story of Johnny Appleseed , children's book
- 1973 Conquistadores
- 1974 Mound Builders
- 1975 Rites of Ancient Ripening , poems
- 1982 OK baby
- 1984 Crusaders: The Radical Legacy Of Marian And Arthur Lesueur
- 1984 I Hear Men Talking and Other Stories
- 1987 Sparrow Hawk , children's book
- Ripening: Selected Work edited by Elaine Hedges, The Feminist Press, 1993
literature
- Literature by and about Meridel Le Sueur in the catalog of the German National Library
- James M. Boehnlein: The Sociocognitive Rhetoric of Meridel Le Sueur: Feminist Discourse and Reportage of the Thirties , Edwin Mellen Press, 1994
- Constance Coiner: Better Red: The Writing and Resistance of Tillie Olsen and Meridel Le Sueur , University of Illinois Press, 1995
Web links
- Selected Writings (Engl.)
- Blanche Gelfant: Rereading a Radical In: New York Times , April 4, 1982
- Wolfgang Saxon: Meridel Le Sueur obituary in the New York Times , November 24, 1996
Individual evidence
- ↑ Susan Ware; Stacy Braukman: Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary , Belknap Press, 2005, p. 381
- ^ Meridel Le Sueur Papers (1929-1942) Archives of the University of Delaware
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Le Sueur, Meridel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | LeSueur, Meridel; LaSueur, Meridel; Sueur, Meridel le; Wharton, Meridel (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American author and suffragette |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Murray , Iowa |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 14, 1996 |
| Place of death | Hudson , Wisconsin |