In 1972 I applied to graduate school and wrote an application essay that indicated I would explor... more In 1972 I applied to graduate school and wrote an application essay that indicated I would explore my mother's (Sophie Melvin Gerson) move from labor organizer and activist, to wife and mother. Steeped in the very particularand limitedconsciousness of early women's liberation, I accepted an all too simple narrative of Sophie's life: a narrative of a gendered loss of agency and activity. Fortunately, I never wrote that Master's thesis, but rather went on to research and write about The Families Committee of Smith Act Defendants. 1 About 20 years later, I was sitting in a Kings County (Brooklyn) courthouse at a guardianship hearing for both my parents, who were in their nineties and increasingly frail in both mind and body. My father (Si Gerson) turned to the judge and asked him, "Do you know why we're here?" The judge, quizzical and curious, awaited further elucidation. Si began a rambling, but very familiar to me, explanation. We were in Brooklyn because Pete Cacchione, New York's first Communist councilman, had died while in office, and Simon W. Gerson was picked by the CPUSA to replace him. 2 While Si never got to serve as City Councilman and the electoral reforms known as proportional representation that allowed left and minority party candidates to get elected were shortly eliminated, the Gerson family was in Brooklyn-for good. So the narrative centers on Si's political trajectory and the story of Sophielabor militant and youthful organizeris subsumed. In 1948, when the family moved to Brooklyn, Sophie was wife, mother of two children, and homemaker for a household that included Si's elderly and frail mother, Helen. While Si's political and logistical trajectory were realized within the Communist Party, Sophie had to find and develop arenas for action feasible within the constraints of childrearing and homemaking, helpmate to her husband "in leadership," and the political landscape of a Jewish and Italian Catholic neighborhood. The past as prologue Like many other activists of the early 20 th centurybut unlike her husband, Sophie Melvin was born in a shtetl in the Ukraine, the second to youngest in a family of five brothers. At a young age her wage labor became necessary for household maintenance. She recalled with sadness, but without blame or self-pity, "I was in school until I was fifteen. And then I went to work. My mother was home. It was a big tragedy when I left school. She and I cried all day. But the older ones had left home. They married. My mother…we couldn't think of her
... Designed by Ellen Levine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data May, Elaine Tyler... more ... Designed by Ellen Levine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data May, Elaine Tyler. Barren in the promised land: childless Americans and the pursuit of happiness / by Elaine Tyler May. p. cm. ... I would wel-come the opportunity if it is God's will. ...
In 1972 I applied to graduate school and wrote an application essay that indicated I would explor... more In 1972 I applied to graduate school and wrote an application essay that indicated I would explore my mother's (Sophie Melvin Gerson) move from labor organizer and activist, to wife and mother. Steeped in the very particularand limitedconsciousness of early women's liberation, I accepted an all too simple narrative of Sophie's life: a narrative of a gendered loss of agency and activity. Fortunately, I never wrote that Master's thesis, but rather went on to research and write about The Families Committee of Smith Act Defendants. 1 About 20 years later, I was sitting in a Kings County (Brooklyn) courthouse at a guardianship hearing for both my parents, who were in their nineties and increasingly frail in both mind and body. My father (Si Gerson) turned to the judge and asked him, "Do you know why we're here?" The judge, quizzical and curious, awaited further elucidation. Si began a rambling, but very familiar to me, explanation. We were in Brooklyn because Pete Cacchione, New York's first Communist councilman, had died while in office, and Simon W. Gerson was picked by the CPUSA to replace him. 2 While Si never got to serve as City Councilman and the electoral reforms known as proportional representation that allowed left and minority party candidates to get elected were shortly eliminated, the Gerson family was in Brooklyn-for good. So the narrative centers on Si's political trajectory and the story of Sophielabor militant and youthful organizeris subsumed. In 1948, when the family moved to Brooklyn, Sophie was wife, mother of two children, and homemaker for a household that included Si's elderly and frail mother, Helen. While Si's political and logistical trajectory were realized within the Communist Party, Sophie had to find and develop arenas for action feasible within the constraints of childrearing and homemaking, helpmate to her husband "in leadership," and the political landscape of a Jewish and Italian Catholic neighborhood. The past as prologue Like many other activists of the early 20 th centurybut unlike her husband, Sophie Melvin was born in a shtetl in the Ukraine, the second to youngest in a family of five brothers. At a young age her wage labor became necessary for household maintenance. She recalled with sadness, but without blame or self-pity, "I was in school until I was fifteen. And then I went to work. My mother was home. It was a big tragedy when I left school. She and I cried all day. But the older ones had left home. They married. My mother…we couldn't think of her
... Designed by Ellen Levine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data May, Elaine Tyler... more ... Designed by Ellen Levine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data May, Elaine Tyler. Barren in the promised land: childless Americans and the pursuit of happiness / by Elaine Tyler May. p. cm. ... I would wel-come the opportunity if it is God's will. ...
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