Miriam Davenport
Encyclopedia
Miriam Davenport was an American painter and sculptor who played an important role helping Europe
an Jews and intellectual
s escape the Holocaust during World War II
.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, studied art and architecture history at Smith College
before spending a year at the Graduate Institute of Fine Arts at New York University
. Awarded a Carnegie
summer art scholarship to study in Paris, France, she attended the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie at the Sorbonne
.
With the German
occupation of France
, Davenport fled first to the city of Toulouse
where she met the poet Walter Mehring
and others who were looking to escape to the United States
. Miriam Davenport went to see if she could get help for their escape through the port city of Marseille
, which although under control of the Vichy Regime
, was not yet occupied by the Nazis
.
However, it was a dangerous time and the United States consulate in Marseille was strongly urging all Americans to leave France. Davenport soon met fellow American, Mary Jayne Gold
, a wealthy Chicago
socialite, and the two teamed up with another American, the journalist
Varian Fry
. At enormous risk to themselves, Davenport and the others ran a covert operation helping writers, artists, scientists, and academics Jews escape from France. They arranged for some of these refugees to escape over the mountains to the safety of Spain
and Portugal
while others they smuggled aboard freighters
sailing to either North Africa
or ports in North
or South America
.
During the less than two years that Miriam Davenport and her group were able to operate in Marseille, they were responsible for the evacuation of more than 2,000 refugees who came from all over Europe including such notable personalities as the artist Marc Chagall
, sculptor
Jacques Lipchitz
, writer Hannah Arendt
and Nobel Prize
winner Otto Meyerhof.
Expelled from France by the Nazis in 1941, on her return to the United States, Miriam Davenport became involved in a number of humanitarian efforts including the Progressive Schools Committee for Refugee Children, the International Rescue and Relief Committee, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
. As well, she worked with the American Council of Learned Societies' Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas for whom she helped prepare maps and documentation for use by the Allied Forces to help avoid bombing culturally important sites as well as to enable military units on the ground to secure these sites to prevent pillaging.
Davenport worked at Princeton University
where she oversaw the office of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists
for Albert Einstein
. Married to a scholar, she and her husband moved to Iowa
in 1951 where he had been offered a professorship at the University of Iowa
.
Miriam then picked up where she had left off at the Sorbonne in Paris before World War II and pursued further studies as a painter and sculptor. Widowed at age forty-six, over the next few years, in addition to earning her Ph.D., she worked as an art instructor and taught French language
courses at the university. Following her marriage to archaeologist and ancient history
scholar, Charles Ebel, she moved with him to a home in Michigan
.
The unselfish and heroic deeds of Miriam Davenport during World War II received almost no public recognition of any kind until 1980 when her friend Mary Jayne Gold
published a book titled Crossroads Marseilles, 1940 that recounted the events. Although Varian Fry had died in 1967, Miriam Davenport was able to visit Marseille and to be reunited with Ms. Gold who had returned to live permanently on the French Riviera
.
Miriam Davenport died of cancer
in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1999, aged 84. Her body was returned to Iowa for burial.
Varian Fry Institute: Miriam Davenport Ebel
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an Jews and intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s escape the Holocaust during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
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...
before spending a year at the Graduate Institute of Fine Arts at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. Awarded a Carnegie
Carnegie Prize
The Carnegie Prize is an international prize for artists, awarded by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The prize should not be confused with the Carnegie Medal, which is awarded for children's literature....
summer art scholarship to study in Paris, France, she attended the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie at the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
.
With the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupation of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Davenport fled first to the city of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
where she met the poet Walter Mehring
Walter Mehring
Walter Mehring was a German author and one of the most prominent satirical authors in the Weimar Republic. He was banned during the Third Reich, and fled the country.-Biographical:...
and others who were looking to escape to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Miriam Davenport went to see if she could get help for their escape through the port city of Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, which although under control of the Vichy Regime
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
, was not yet occupied by the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
However, it was a dangerous time and the United States consulate in Marseille was strongly urging all Americans to leave France. Davenport soon met fellow American, Mary Jayne Gold
Mary Jayne Gold
Mary Jayne Gold was an American heiress who played an important role helping European Jews and intellectuals escape Nazi Germany in 1940-1941, during World War II....
, a wealthy Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
socialite, and the two teamed up with another American, the journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Varian Fry
Varian Fry
Varian Mackey Fry was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped approximately 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.-Early life:...
. At enormous risk to themselves, Davenport and the others ran a covert operation helping writers, artists, scientists, and academics Jews escape from France. They arranged for some of these refugees to escape over the mountains to the safety of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
while others they smuggled aboard freighters
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
sailing to either North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
or ports in North
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
or South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
.
During the less than two years that Miriam Davenport and her group were able to operate in Marseille, they were responsible for the evacuation of more than 2,000 refugees who came from all over Europe including such notable personalities as the artist Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...
, writer Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
and Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Otto Meyerhof.
Expelled from France by the Nazis in 1941, on her return to the United States, Miriam Davenport became involved in a number of humanitarian efforts including the Progressive Schools Committee for Refugee Children, the International Rescue and Relief Committee, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City....
. As well, she worked with the American Council of Learned Societies' Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas for whom she helped prepare maps and documentation for use by the Allied Forces to help avoid bombing culturally important sites as well as to enable military units on the ground to secure these sites to prevent pillaging.
Davenport worked at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
where she oversaw the office of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists
Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists
The Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists was founded by Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd in 1946. Its aims were to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons, promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and ultimately work towards world peace, which was...
for 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...
. Married to a scholar, she and her husband moved to Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
in 1951 where he had been offered a professorship at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
.
Miriam then picked up where she had left off at the Sorbonne in Paris before World War II and pursued further studies as a painter and sculptor. Widowed at age forty-six, over the next few years, in addition to earning her Ph.D., she worked as an art instructor and taught French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
courses at the university. Following her marriage to archaeologist and ancient history
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
scholar, Charles Ebel, she moved with him to a home in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
.
The unselfish and heroic deeds of Miriam Davenport during World War II received almost no public recognition of any kind until 1980 when her friend Mary Jayne Gold
Mary Jayne Gold
Mary Jayne Gold was an American heiress who played an important role helping European Jews and intellectuals escape Nazi Germany in 1940-1941, during World War II....
published a book titled Crossroads Marseilles, 1940 that recounted the events. Although Varian Fry had died in 1967, Miriam Davenport was able to visit Marseille and to be reunited with Ms. Gold who had returned to live permanently on the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
.
Miriam Davenport died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1999, aged 84. Her body was returned to Iowa for burial.
Varian Fry Institute: Miriam Davenport Ebel
Suggested reading
- Peggy GuggenheimPeggy GuggenheimMarguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...
, Out of This Century, Confessions of an Art Addict, (Foreword by Gore VidalGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, (Introduction by Alfred H. Barr Jr.), ANCHOR BOOKS, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Universe Books 1979, ISBN 0385-17109-9