Emma Gelders Sterne (May 13, 1894–August 29, 1971) was an American writer of children's books, with a historical and literary focus. Born in Alabama, she became involved in liberal causes include

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

and racial equality, issues she incorporated into some of her writing.

Personal life

Sterne was of German-Jewish background, and was born in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% f ...

on May 13, 1894, to restaurateur Louis Gelders and Blanche Loeb. Her younger brother

Joseph Gelders Joseph Sidney Gelders (November 20, 1898 – March 1, 1950) was an American physicist who later became an Anti-racism, antiracist, civil rights activist, labor organizer, and communist. In the mid-1930s, he served as the secretary and ...

was a physicist, civil rights activist, and labor organizer. She grew up on nearby Red Mountain. She wrote for both her high school and college literary magazines, and graduated from Smith College in 1916. Back in Birmingham, she got involved in the

movement, started a school for delinquent children, and became a newspaper columnist focusing on "women's issues". Sterne said that when she was growing up she had never seen or heard "an educated color person. She had never even heard the name of a black man or woman who had done anything notable." In 1913, during her freshman year of college, she attended a speech by

W.E.B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...

, which marked a turning point in her life.Mickenberg, Julia. “Civil Rights, History, and the Left: Inventing the Juvenile Black Biography.” MELUS 27, no. 2 (July 1, 2002): 65–93. doi:10.2307/3250602. In 1917, she married Roy M. Sterne, a lawyer. They had two daughters, Ann and Barbara, and moved to New York. She studied writing at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and the New School for Social Research. She joined the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

, the NAACP, and the Democratic party, and identified herself as an atheist, raising concerns among her family and friends that she had become a Communist. Her brother began to get involved with politics, which she didn't agree with at first, but soon developed similar views, describing herself as a "left-liberal New Dealer". She joined the Communist Party in 1950 and began working with the Congress of Racial Equality. She died in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

on August 29, 1971.

Career

Sterne sold her first story in May 1923, and quickly produced two books for the popular ''All About'' series. She continued writing for the rest of her life, focusing on history and children's literature, which she combined in her historical adaptations for children, such as the legends of

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as ...

, the biography ''Amarantha Gay, M.D.'', or ''Long Black Schooner: The Voyage of the Amistad''. Topics related to social justice, such as Native American history and slavery, were recurring themes in her 44 books. Many of the books she cared the most about were written with the civil rights movement in mind. She was a school teacher, an elementary textbook editor, and then a children's book editor in the 1940s. In 1954 and 1955 she published two picture books for small children, which were retellings of American Indian legends, under the pseudonym Emily Broun. From 1959 to 1966, she and her younger daughter Barbara Lindsay wrote the Kathy Martin series (about a nurse and amateur sleuth) of young adult novels, published under the pseudonym Josephine James.

Partial bibliography

*''All About Peter Pan'' (1924) *''All About

Little Boy Blue "Little Boy Blue" is an English-language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11318. Lyrics A common version of the rhyme is: Little Boy Blue, Come blow your horn, The sheep's in the meadow, The cow's in the corn. Where is ...

'' (1924) *''Loud Sing Cuckoo'' (1930) *''Amarantha Gay, M.D.'' (1933) *''Drums of Monmouth'' (1935) *''The Calico Ball'' (1936) *''Some Plant Olive Trees'' (1937) *''European Summer'' (1938) *''The Pirate of Chatham Square'' (1939) *''America Was Like This'' (1940) *''We Live To Be Free'' (1942) *''Printer's Devil'' (1952) *''Long Black Schooner: The Voyage of the Amistad'' (1953), reprinted as ''The Slave Ship'' *''Let the Moon Go By, a Book of Tall Tales'' (1955) *''Blood Brothers: Four Men of Science'' (1959) *''I Have a Dream'' (1965) *''They Took Their Stand'' (1968) *''His Was the Voice: the Life of

'' (1971)

Kathy Martin books

with Barbara Lindsay *''A Cap for Kathy'' (1959) *''Junior Nurse'' (1960) *''Senior Nurse'' (1960) *''The Patient in 202'' (1961) *''Assignment in Alaska'' (1961) *''Private Nurse'' (1962) *''Search for an Island'' (1963) *''Sierra Adventure'' (1964) *''Courage in Crisis'' (1964) *''Off-Duty Nurse'' (1964) *''An Affair of the Heart'' (1965) *''Peace Corps Nurse'' (1965) *''African Adventure'' (1965)

References

External links

Encyclopedia of Alabama
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gelders Sterne, Emma 1894 births 1971 deaths American children's writers Writers from Birmingham, Alabama American women children's writers American people of German-Jewish descent Jewish American writers 20th-century American women writers Writers of modern Arthurian fiction 20th-century American writers Smith College alumni