SPEAKER_01: When I started working on women's history, the field did not exist. It was not recognized. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing. Professors that taught me thought it was an exotic specialty, and I was wasting my talents pursuing it.
SPEAKER_00: Hello. Hello. From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. In case you're just tuning in, here's the deal. Every weekday, we're telling the stories of women from around the world and throughout history who you may not know about but definitely should. Each month is themed, and this month we're going back to school. We're talking about women who had a major impact in the field of education. Today's educator spent her academic life encouraging people to pursue the field that she was pioneering. She single-handedly established women's history as a legitimate department of scholarship. Let's talk about Gerda Lerner. Gerda Hedwig Kronstein was born on April 30, 1920, in Vienna, Austria, to Robert and Ilana Kronstein. Hers was an affluent Jewish family that defied many of the norms of the time. For starters, the family's money came from when Gerda's father used her mother's dowry to open a successful pharmaceutical enterprise. Gerda's mother was a Bohemian artist who encouraged sexual freedom and vegetarianism. Because of their vastly different lifestyles, Robert and Ilana had a contentious relationship. Ilana knew that if she asked for a divorce, she would lose custody of Gerda and Gerda's younger sister, Nora. So Ilana and Robert agreed that they would lead separate but discreet lives under the same roof. Gerda and Nora had to make appointments to see their mother, who was relegated to a single room separated from the rest of the apartment. Ilana enjoyed avant-garde art and had many young suitors, while Robert had a separate apartment for his mistress. Being a witness to her parents' unorthodox arrangement exposed Gerda to female independence and caused her to question imposed societal norms. As Gerda got older, she flirted with cultural and political radicalism. When a civil war began in Vienna in 1934, Gerda's father unknowingly sent her to stay with an anti-Semitic family in England. After realizing what he'd done, Robert allowed Gerda to leave and enroll in a youth camp in Wales run by the communist J.B.S. Haldane. Gerda subscribed to the ideology immediately. She eventually returned to Vienna, but things were not the same. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Gerda's father was tipped off that he was going to be arrested. He fled to Liechtenstein, where he'd opened another pharmacy. Gerda and her mother were collateral for Gerda's father's absence. When the Gestapo showed up at their house with a warrant for his arrest, they arrested and jailed the two women in an effort to pressure Robert into returning. Gerda and Ilana were imprisoned separately for six weeks. They were released when Robert sold his Austrian assets to pay for their freedom. Gerda said it was the most important experience of her life because she didn't think she was going to come out alive. In 1939, Gerda immigrated to the United States under sponsorship from her fiancé, Bernard Jensen. The two divorced the next year, as the marriage was exclusively for immigration purposes. Soon after, Gerda fell in love with communist theater director Karl Lerner. The couple married in 1941 and relocated to Los Angeles to pursue Karl's dreams of becoming a film director. Hollywood was tough for Gerda. She was prickly, intense, and averse to small talk and frivolous gossip. In 1943, Gerda became a U.S. citizen, and she joined the USA Communist Party. In 1946, the same year her daughter Stephanie was born, Gerda helped found and leave the L.A. chapter of the Communist Front Organization, the Congress of American Women, or CAW. Through CAW, she was introduced to the plight of black women, trade unionism, and civil rights. A year later, she gave birth to a son, Dan. As McCarthyism spread, the Lerner's struggled. Karl's career flatlined because of his politics. The family moved back to New York and dissociated from the Communist Party. Gerda published an autobiographical novel called No Farewell. Between 1958 and 1966, Gerda earned her bachelor's degree from the New School for Social Research and her master's and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. During her senior year in 1962, she taught one of the first college courses in women's history called Great Women in American History. Gerda's interest on the intersection of race and women led her to write her dissertation on Sarah and Angelina Grimké, the white abolitionist sisters of South Carolina. Through this topic, Gerda showed her commitment to challenging racism and exposing the racist origins of the American political economy. Just a year after earning her Ph.D., a reputable publisher published the dissertation. From that point on, the rest of Gerda's career was dedicated to women's and African American history. She took a job teaching women's history at Sarah Lawrence College in 1968. With fellow historian Joan Kelly, Gerda fought to build a respected women's history graduate program. In 1972, they realized that goal and created the first master's degree program in women's history in the U.S.
SPEAKER_02: It makes me furious when I hear that they gave us suffrage. Excuse me, it took 72 years of unbroken organizing grassroots effort to get women's suffrage. It took 113 years to get rid of child labor by law. And so the first thing, rule one, nobody gave us anything. We had to fight every inch of the way for every advance.
SPEAKER_00: That same year, Gerda published her most influential piece of work, Black Women in White America, a documentary history. It was a collection of primary sources that documented black women's contribution to history, despite slavery, racism, and oppression over the course of 350 years. The work was the first of its kind because critics believed that African American women's history didn't have enough sources to be credible. But Gerda busted that myth and presented the world with a robust group of sources, proving African American women's history can and should be written. Although Gerda's time at Sarah Lawrence was one characterized by success and triumph, it wasn't without hardship. Carl developed a brain tumor, and Gerda took on the role of his primary caretaker. He passed away in 1973, and she wrote a poignant memoir about the experience called A Death of One's Own in 1978. In 1980, Gerda accepted a job as a professor at the University of Wisconsin. There she built the country's first PhD program in women's history. Her classes were more than just educational. They were innately political. They were rousing, inspirational lectures that encouraged action. While at the University of Wisconsin, Gerda began a new study inspired by the changes in the women's liberation movement. She used anthropology, archaeology, and mythology to write Creation of Patriarchy and Creation of Feminist Consciousness, two volumes of work that trace oppression back to misogyny and the patriarchy. Gerda devoted her career to supporting the idea that women's history mattered, that women had the power to alter the course of human events. Gerda's impact was recognized by the Organization of American Historians when they elected her president in 1981. She was the first woman in 50 years to hold the title. Gerda Lerner died on January 2, 2013 in Madison, Wisconsin at the age of 92. All month, we're going back to school, talking about women who changed the world of education. For more on why we're doing what we're doing, check out our newsletter, Womanica Weekly. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow! This month of Encyclopedia Womanica is proudly supported by UNC Greensboro. Founded as a women's college in 1891, UNC Greensboro presents She Can, We Can, beyond the women's suffrage centennial. Through performances, films, lectures, and concerts, UNCG examines how the decisions from our past affect us today. Join the experience and learn more at shecanwecan.uncg.edu.
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