Josephine Herbst
(1892 - 1969) U.S.A.
Writer, political and social activist
Born in Sioux City, Iowa, herbst acted as a special news correspondent during 1930s, investigating political dissent in the USA, Germany, Spain, and Cuba. Herbst's novels did not engage with her sexual identity or thematize homosexuality. Instead they attacked the values of the US middle classes.
Herbst tried to keep her sexuality separate from her public life. In that she was not unlike many lesbians and gays in the first half of the 20th century who remained closeted for fear that their sexuality might make them the objects of public persecution and denunciation.
Herbst spent most of her later years in obscurity in her country home in Erwinna, Pa. She died of cancer at a New York hospital and is buried in the family plot at Sioux City's Graceland Cemetery. After her death, however, letters by her to the radical muralist Marion Greenwood and to other women were discoered revealing her lesbian relationships.
Excerpts from: Gabriele Griffin, Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay and Writing, Routledge, London, 2002
|
