American History

Writer, Warrior, Witness.

Bryn Mawr College dropout Martha Gellhorn quit the Albany, New York, Times Union in 1930 to move to Paris and write. After 10 months of banging out ad copy and freelancing for The New Republic and other magazines, Gellhorn returned to the United States to undergo an abortion. Back in France with her married lover, she got pregnant again in 1933 and had another abortion. Writing for Vogue and working on a novel, What Mad Pursuit, Gellhorn traveled Europe and agonized about her affair, ultimately returning to the United States. In autumn 1934, through a journalist friend, Gellhorn got a job working for presidential adviser Harry Hopkins at the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, analyzing welfare programs. In her reports, Gellhorn embraced a lifelong determination to make “little squeaking observations about the wrongness of things.” In curating the new Firefly Books title, Yours, for probably always: Martha Gellhorn’s Letters of Love & War 1930-1949, biographer Janet Somerville presents selections from Gellhorn’s correspondence with eminent figures including Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and her first husband, Ernest Hemingway.

MG to Harry Hopkins November 26, 1934, Massachusetts

It is impossible in traveling through the state and seeing our relief set-up, not to feel that here incompetence has become a menace; and that the unemployed are suffering for the inadequacy of the administration. It seems that our administrative posts are frequently assigned on recommendations of the Mayor and town Board of Aldermen. The administrator is a nice inefficient guy who is being rewarded for being somebody’s cousin…

“PEOPLE DON’T ENJOY NEARLY AS MUCH HEARING ABOUT THEIR OWN WOES… AS THEY ENJOY HEARING ABOUT STRANGERS’ MESSES…”

Now about the unemployed themselves: this picture is so grim that whatever words I use will seem hysterical and exaggerated….I find them all in the same shape—fear, fear driving them into a state of semi-collapse; cracking nerves; and an overpowering terror of the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from American History

American History1 min readAmerican Government
TOP BID Four Eyes $478
President Theodore Roosevelt’s pince-nez glasses were always featured prominently in caricatures of him. These 1904 political pins capitalized on his signature eyewear, with one pair doubling its use as a frame to hold sepia celluloid images of Teddy
American History1 min read
American History
CHRIS K. HOWLAND EDITOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP DESIGN DIRECTOR ALEX GRIFFITH DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR GUY ACETO PHOTO EDITOR CLAIRE BARRETT NEWS AND SOCIAL EDITOR KELLY FACER SVP REVENUE OPERATIONS MATT GROSS VP DIGITAL INITIATIVE
American History2 min read
Strike a Pose
A bold new photographic project asks modern-day Americans to re-create portraits of their 19th-century ancestors in painstakingly accurate fashion. Award-winning British photographer Drew Gardner has spent nearly 20 years tracking down descendants of

Related Books & Audiobooks