Josephine Herbst (March 5, 1892 – January 28, 1969) was an American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, active from 1923 to near the time of her death. She was a radical with

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

leanings, who "incorporate the philosophy of socialism into her fiction" and "aligned herself with the political Left". She wrote "proletarian novels" conceived along the party line, "in Marxist terms" and described as a "subtle blend of art and propaganda."

Biography

Herbst was born in

Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City () is a city in Woodbury County, Iowa, Woodbury and Plymouth County, Iowa, Plymouth counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 85,797 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Iowa, fo ...

. She finished high school in 1910, attended Morningside College (1910–12), the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

(1912–13), the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

(1916) and the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, where she got her bachelor's degree in 1918. She then moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

where she affiliated herself with the people involved with ''

The Writer ''The Writer'' is a United States magazine for writers, published monthly by Madavor Media. History ''The Writer'' was first established by William H. Hills and Robert Luce, two ''Boston Globe'' reporters, as "a monthly magazine to interest an ...

'' and '' The Liberator''. Friends were Genevieve Taggard,

Max Eastman Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy, and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radica ...

and

Albert Rhys Williams Albert Rhys Williams (September 28, 1883 – February 27, 1962), commonly known by his middle name, pronounced "Reece," was an American journalist, labor organizer, and publicist. He is most famous for writing memoirs in favor of the 1917 Oct ...

. The journalist and poet

Maxwell Anderson James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist. Anderson faced many challenges in his career, frequently losing jobs for expressing his opinions or supporting ...

, who was married, became her lover. Herbst published her first

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

Carlotta Geet in ''

American Mercury ''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured wr ...

'' and '' Smart Set'', then edited by

H.L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

, for whom she had worked as a publicity writer and editorial reader. She went to Europe in 1922. In

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

she began to write her first, unpublished, novel ''Following the Circle'', an account of her affair with Anderson and her own abortion, as well as her sister's fatal abortion. In Paris in 1924 she fell in love with writer

John Herrmann John Theodore Herrmann (November 9, 1900 – April 9, 1959) was a writer in the 1920s and 1930s and is alleged to have introduced Whittaker Chambers to Alger Hiss. Biography Herrmann was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1900. He lived in Paris in ...

, nine years her junior. The couple left Europe at the end of the year and lived in a New Preston, Connecticut farmhouse the next year. They were married in 1926. The Herrmanns bought a farm house in Erwinna, Pennsylvania, in 1928, that remained Herbst's home until she died. The couple separated in 1934, and divorced in 1940. By the 1920s Herbst had made friends with Nathan Asch,

Robert McAlmon Robert Menzies McAlmon (also used Robert M. McAlmon, as his signature name, March 9, 1895 – February 2, 1956) was an American writer, poet, and publisher. In the 1920s, he founded in Paris the publishing house, ''Contact Editions'', where he ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...

and

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel '' Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in the United States that y ...

and

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. (trilogy), ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a ...

. In addition to her novels, in the 1930s she published in several newspapers and magazines, including ''

New Masses ''New Masses'' (1926–1948) was an American Marxist magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). It was the successor to both '' The Masses'' (1911–1917) and ''The Liberator'' (1918–1924). ''New Masses'' was later merge ...

'', then edited by

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer and intelligence agent. After early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), he defected from the Soviet u ...

. In 1936 she was awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

. In 1937 she toured the fronts of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, as a guest of Stalinist supporters of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII. ...

. After

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

, Herbst got a job as a propaganda writer for foreign broadcast in the

Office of the Coordinator of Information The Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) was an intelligence and propaganda agency of the United States Government, founded on July 11, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to U.S. involvement in the Second World War. It was in ...

(progenitor of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

), but was fired a few months later in 1942 after background investigation by the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

found that she wrote that she voted

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

, that she lobbied the

U.S. Ambassador to France The United States ambassador to France is the official representative of the president of the United States to the president of France. The United States has maintained diplomatic relations with France since the American Revolution. Relations w ...

to get Communist aliens into the U.S., and that she was a "great admirer" of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

, and considered Communist Party boss

Earl Browder Earl Russell Browder (May 20, 1891 – June 27, 1973) was an American politician, spy for the Soviet Union, communist activist and leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). Browder was the General Secretary of the CP ...

too "timid." During the

Alger Hiss Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official who was accused of espionage in 1948 for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The statute of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjur ...

battle, Herbst told the FBI that in the apartment she and Herrmann shared for three months in 1934, she had seen documents taken from government offices by members of the

Ware group The Ware Group was a covert organization of Communist Party USA operatives within the United States government in the 1930s, run first by Harold Ware (1889–1935) and then by Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961) after Ware's accidental death on Augus ...

for transmission to New York. She told Hiss's lawyers that Chambers and Herrmann discussed recruiting Hiss to help them acquire such documents, and that they and

Harold Ware Harold or "Hal" Ware (August 19, 1889 – August 14, 1935) was an American Marxist, regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture. He was employed by a federal New Deal agency in the 1930s. He is alleged to have been a ...

all told her in mid-1934 that they were already in touch with Hiss, trying to recruit him for espionage more than six months before Hiss claimed to have met Chambers. In her letters and papers Herbst revealed that she knew Chambers as "an underground agent of the Communist Party known as 'Carl,' responsible for transmission of documents from a sympathetic cell of government employees in Washington, D.C., to Communist authorities in New York,". Ruth Herrmann, widow of Herbst's ex-husband,

, told Langer that her late husband was "the man who introduced Chambers to

."Elinor Langer, ''Josephine Herbst: The Story She Could Never Tell'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984) , p. 297

Selected works

* ''Nothing is Sacred'', 1928 * ''Money for Love'', 1929 * ''Trexler trilogy'': ** '' Pity Is Not Enough'', 1933 ** ''The Executioner Waits'', 1934 ** ''Rope of Gold'', 1939 * ''Behind the Swastika'', 1936 * ''Satan's Sergeants'', 1941 * ''Somewhere the Tempest Fell'', 1947 * ''New Green World'', 1954 * '' The Starched Blue Sky of Spain and Other Memoirs'', 1991

References

External links

Josephine Herbst at The Literary Encyclopedia
* Josephine Herbst Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Herbst, Josephine 1892 births 1969 deaths 20th-century American women writers American lesbian writers Writers from Iowa Morningside University alumni University of Iowa alumni University of Washington alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Proletarian literature Writers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania 20th-century American LGBTQ people

Biography

Selected works

References

Further reading

External links