Eleanor Flexner was a distinguished independent scholar and pioneer in what was to become the field of women’s studies. Her much praised Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States relates women’s physically courageous and politically ingenious work for the vote to other 19th- and early 20th-century social, labor, and reform movements, most importantly the push for equal education, the abolition of slavery, and temperance laws.

Family

Flexner was the younger of two highly intelligent daughters of well-known parents. Her mother, Anne Crawford Flexner

Anne Crawford Flexner

-References:...

 (1874-1955), a successful playwright and children’s author, organized professional playwrights into an association that later became the Dramatists Guild of the Author’s League of America.

Eleanor’s father, Abraham Flexner

Abraham Flexner

Abraham Flexner was an American educator. His Flexner Report, published in 1910, reformed medical education in the United States...

 (1866-1959), was a leader in several fields including, with his brother Simon Flexner

Simon Flexner

Simon Flexner, M.D. was a physician, scientist, administrator, and professor of experimental pathology at the University of Pennsylvania . He was the first director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation...

 at the Rockefeller Institute, the reform of early 20th-century medical education and medical research in the United States and Canada. Abraham founded and served as first director of the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

. His ideas for the structure and purpose of the institute so appealed to theoretical physicist Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 that Einstein chose it over competing university appointments when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1936.

Eleanor’s sister, Jean Flexner, became one of the first employees of the Division of Labor Standards in Washington, DC.

Encouragement and financial assistance from her parents carried Flexner through the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and gave her the means to experiment as a playwright and social organizer. Her mother at her death left Eleanor a lifetime income. Both Anne and Abraham Flexner were feminists who supported passage of the Nineteenth Amendment

Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....

 to the United States Constitution

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

 and both marched in the 1915 New York woman suffrage parade.

Career

Eleanor Flexner was born in Georgetown, Kentucky

Georgetown, Kentucky

Georgetown is a city in Scott County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 29,098 at the 2010 census. The original settlement of Lebanon, founded by Rev. Elijah Craig, was renamed in 1790 in honor of President George Washington. It is the home of Georgetown College, a private liberal arts...

, but spent her youth in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. A biographical statement in the Schlesinger Library

Schlesinger Library

The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F...

 Archives at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 outlines Flexner’s early career:
During this period of her life Flexner found her way into New York’s radical left. She joined the Communist Party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

 in 1936 and spent several years writing CP articles and pamphlets, under pseudonyms, and working for various social and political causes. As a member of the League of American Writers

League of American Writers

The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...

, she served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact. This activist background allowed Flexner to appreciate the disappointments, triumphs, and bracing camaraderie experienced by the 19th- and early 20th-century women whom she later described in Century of Struggle.

In the 1940s, Flexner began researching the 19th-century labor struggles of American women but found that few historians had touched on the subject. She was by that time already planning to write a history of the American woman suffrage movement and gradually became convinced that a comprehensive treatment must deal with the experiences of working class women and politically active women of color. Flexner worked on the manuscript that was to become Century of Struggle through most of the 1950s. When she showed the completed book to the distinguished historian Arthur Schlesinger

Arthur Schlesinger

Arthur Schlesinger may refer to:*Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. , American historian and professor at Harvard University*Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. , his son, American historian, social critic and former John F. Kennedy associate...

, he recognized its value and urged her to offer it to Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press

Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

, which readily accepted it for publication.

Many of the concepts that inform Century of Struggle were developed by a small group of Marxist women — including, in addition to Flexner, Susan B. Anthony II, Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner is a historian, author and teacher. She is a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University...

, and Eve Merriam

Eve Merriam

-Writing career:Merriam's first book was the 1946 Family Circle, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize.Her book, The Inner City Mother Goose, was described as one of the most banned books of the time. It inspired a 1971 Broadway musical called Inner City and a 1982 musical production called Street...

. It was only in 1982, however, that Flexner publicly acknowledged her past membership in the Communist Party.

In 1957, Flexner moved from New York to Northampton, Massachusetts, where her life partner, Helen Terry, was on the faculty of Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

. Flexner completed Century of Struggle and wrote her last book, Mary Wollstonecraft, in this setting.

Major work

• American Playwrights, 1918-1938: The Theatre Retreats from Reality, (1938, 1966; reprinted in 1969 with a new preface by Eleanor Flexnor).
• Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States, (1959, expanded edition 1975; enlarged edition 1996 co-authored with Ellen Fitzpatrick, who also wrote a biographically valuable foreword).
• Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography (1972).

Further reading

• Thomas Neville Bonner, Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
• Ellen Carol DuBois, Woman Suffrage and Women’s Rights (Chapter 12: “Eleanor Flexner and the History of American Feminism”). New York University Press, 1998.
• Kate Weigand, Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women’s Liberation (Reconfiguring American Political History). Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

American Playwrights, 1918-1938

From Flexner’s 1969 preface:

Plays evaluated in American Playwrights are by dramatists Sidney Howard

Sidney Howard

Sidney Coe Howard was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...

, S.N. Behrman, Maxwell Anderson

Maxwell Anderson

James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...

, Eugene O’Neill, by comedy writer George S. Kaufman

George S. Kaufman

George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

 (variously collaborating with Marc Connelly

Marc Connelly

Marcus Cook Connelly was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.-Biography:...

, Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big , Show Boat , and Giant .-Early years:Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan,...

, Moss Hart

Moss Hart

Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

, Herman Mankiewicz, Morrie Ryskind

Morrie Ryskind

Morrie Ryskind was an American dramatist, lyricist and writer of theatrical productions and motion pictures, who became a conservative political activist later in life.-Biography:...

, Howard Dietz

Howard Dietz

Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...

, Katherine Dayton, and others), and by comedy writers George Kelly, Rachel Crothers

Rachel Crothers

Rachel Crothers was a prolific and successful American playwright and theater director, known for her well-crafted plays. One of the most famous was Susan and God , which was made into a film by MGM in 1940 starring Joan Crawford and Frederic March.Crothers was born in Bloomington, Illinois, USA...

, Philip Barry

Philip Barry

Philip James Quinn Barry was an American playwright born in Rochester, New York.-Early life:Philip Barry was born on June 18, 1896 in Rochester, New York to James Corbett Barry and Mary Agnes Quinn Barry. James would die from appendicitis a year after Philip's birth, and his father's marble and...

, and Robert E. Sherwood

Robert E. Sherwood

Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood...

.

In the penultimate chapter, “The New Realism,” brief attention is given to Susan Glaspell

Susan Glaspell

Susan Keating Glaspell was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer and poet. She was a founding member of the Provincetown Players, one of the most important collaboratives in the development of modern drama in the United States...

, Arthur Richman

Arthur Richman

Arthur Richman was an American baseball writer at a New York City newspaper who become a sports executive, working in the front office of both the New York Mets and New York Yankees.-Biography:...

, Elmer Rice

Elmer Rice

Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...

, Sophie Treadwell

Sophie Treadwell

Sophie Treadwell , was a leading American playwright and journalist of the first half of the 20th century. Among her prominent works are Machinal and Intimations For Saxophone...

, John Howard Lawson

John Howard Lawson

John Howard Lawson was an American writer. He was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the cell's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief...

, Paul Green

Paul Green

Paul Eliot Green was an American playwright best known for his depictions of life in North Carolina during the first decades of the twentieth century...

, Paul & Claire Sifton, George Sklar & Albert Maltz

Albert Maltz

Albert Maltz was an American author and screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten who were later blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses....

, Paul Peters & George Sklar, John Wexley, Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...

, Albert Bein, Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...

, Emanuel Eisenberg, Sidney Kingsley

Sidney Kingsley

Sidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...

, Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein

Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...

, and Ben Bengal.

Flexner regrets in her 1969 preface to the book that she did not include Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...

, Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

, and Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman

Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...

 among the playwrights singled out for special notice.

Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States

Century of Struggle became a point of departure for generations of historians who built the field of women’s history. Professor Ellen Carol DuBois (UCLA) wrote in 1991 that Century of Struggle “has stood for thirty years as the most comprehensive history of American feminism up to the enfranchisement of women in 1920.” Ellen Fitzpatrick (University of New Hampshire), another leading scholar and co-author of the 1996 enlarged edition, wrote:

Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...

 Godwin (1759-1797) was an English feminist, writer, and philosopher. There are at least three sources of her continuing renown in Britain and America: She is the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She opposed the eminent Edmund Burke’s views concerning the French Revolution in her A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and was present in Paris in 1793 when England and France declared war. Finally, she is the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818).

In this classic biography, which has not been reprinted, Flexner recounts the glories and miseries of Wollstonecraft’s childhood and professional life. She describes Wollstonecraft’s crushing self-doubt and unstable temperament, as well as her capacity for hard work even in times of significant adversity. Drawing on contemporary letters and diaries, Flexner adds new material to earlier lives of Wollstonecraft, especially concerning Wollstonecraft’s literary friendships and her relations with her sisters and brothers.

External links

• Eleanor Flexner in Northampton
• Abraham Flexner’s extraordinary career
• Difficulty of achieving the vote for women
• Eleanor Flexner Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.