WEBVTT - Emma Lazarus 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.840 Hey listeners, we have got some live shows coming up. Sunday, 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.680 July at two pm, we will be doing a live 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:11.200 podcast at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. The 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.920 show will be outdoors on the bil Estate Lawn at 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.720 one one Adam Street in Quincy. Then on Saturday, July 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.880 twenty one, we'll be doing a live podcast at Convention 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.400 Days at Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.960 New York. That show will be at four pm and 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.280 Wesleyan Chapel. And we also have East Coast and West 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.440 Coast tours coming up in August and October, with stops 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:39.040 in Atlanta, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Sumrville, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York, Washington, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.000 d C, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles and 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.200 San Francisco, California. You can find more information about all 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.840 of these shows and links to my tickets at missed 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:55.400 in History dot com slash Tour. Welcome to stuph you 0:00:55.480 --> 0:01:05.320 missed in History class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.200 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.679 Tracy V. Wilson uh and today we're going to talk 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.720 about Emma Lazarus, who became one of the United States 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.640 first successful Jewish American writers, moving in the New York 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.680 literary scene in the late eighteen hundreds, and she also 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.720 wrote one of the most famous poems of all time. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.360 Even if you don't know her name or the title 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:28.680 of that poem, odds are that at least you know 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.400 some lines of that work. Heads up for our listeners 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.520 who are maybe sharing this episode with younger history buffs. 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.160 We are going to have a discussion at the end 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.160 about one of her poems that is definitely erotic and 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.839 calls into questions some theories about her sexuality. The poem 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.640 in particular is adult content. I would say, yeah, I 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.560 read it this morning and then I needed to take 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:58.520 a walk. So we're gonna jump right in to the 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.120 life of Emma Lazarus. She was born on July twenty two, 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.320 eighteen forty nine, and her parents, Moses and Esther Lazarus, 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.040 had seven children. She was born right in the middle. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.800 She was their fourth. They lived in New York City 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.240 and Emma's family, which had Portuguese Jewish roots, was pretty wealthy. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.400 The family business was a sugar refinery and they had 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.640 done extremely well for themselves. The family had been in 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.040 New York since before the Revolutionary War, so that money 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.720 that had been passed down through the family was rooted 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.840 originally in a sugar trade that was directly tied to slavery. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.480 And the success that Moses acquired through the family business 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.720 put him in high society circles that consisted primarily of 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.240 white Christians, and he made something of a conscious effort 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.959 to play down the family's Sephardic Jewish background as part 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.680 of their assimilation into that social circle. He was moving 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.720 towards more of a secular Judaism himself. But this whole 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.079 situation really always gave Emma a sense of otherness. Even 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.840 though she had friends, she just always felt apart from 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.480 kind of everyone. Her early life was split between homes 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.760 in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. She studied 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.240 with private tutors and received a really wide ranging education. 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.679 She learned to speak French, Italian, and German, and these 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.920 multi lingual skills really served her well in her career. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.240 Her translations were as popular as the poetry and prose 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.959 that she was writing, and she was translating uh poetry 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.040 from foreign languages from a very early age in In 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.600 eighteen sixty six, her poetry was published for the first 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.920 time in a volume titled Poems and Translations written between 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.760 the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and this book was 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.040 financed not by a publishing house but by her father, Moses, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.200 who was incredibly supportive of her work as a writer. 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.040 But in eighteen sixty seven a publishing house printed a 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.480 second edition of the book, which gave it a much 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.440 wider distribution. Soon, Emma Lazarus was a name that was 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.680 circulating in literary circles, and her poe aetry was getting 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.280 the attention of people like Ralph Waldo Emerson. He became 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.000 her mentor after the two of them were introduced by 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.920 mutual friends. When Emma published a book of poetry called 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.040 ad Medicine Other Poems in eighteen seventy one, the title 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.560 poem was dedicated to Emerson. That relationship between Emerson, who 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.719 was sixty five when he met eighteen year old Lazarus, 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.240 wasn't always a smooth one. Initially, Emerson had seemed even 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.040 a little flirtatious in his letters with the young poet, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.240 and while he praised her work generally, he gave very 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.640 few specific notes and then he also cooled in his 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.160 affinity for her and kind of withdrew. This is something 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.400 that if you look at Emerson's life, this was a 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.400 pattern of him with younger poets that he chose to 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:45.320 mentor he would kind of lavish praise on them and 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.039 then kind of back off of it. And then when 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.479 she asked him to recommend a poem of hers to 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.760 his editor I believe it was at the Atlantic for publication, 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.000 he instead leveled some pretty harsh criticism at the work 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.560 and told her that she had a tendency to indulge 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.680 in quote feeble words. The two of them had a 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.159 deeper falling out when Emerson edited the anthology Parnassis This 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.640 is a collection of his favorite poems, and he left 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.960 Emma's work out of it entirely. She wrote him a 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.920 really angry letter about this slight and he never wrote 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.520 her back about it. Eventually the two of them did 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.240 see each other again. Was a couple of years later, 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.200 after Emerson had retired. Lazarus visited him and conquered Massachusetts 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.920 in eighteen seventy six at his invitation. Yes, so they 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.000 seem to have smoothed it over at least a little 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.000 but we don't really know that they ever got to 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.560 the point of friendship they had once shared. Lazarus published 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.599 more than fifty original poems in her lifetime, as well 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.919 as volumes of translations. In eighteen seventy one, she published 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.440 her second book of poetry that Tracy mentioned earlier, which 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.800 was Admetus and Other Poems, and in it our translations 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.960 of poems by Gerta and Heinrich Heine as well as 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:59.240 original works by Lazarus. And her poem how Long, conveys 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.680 the sense that Lazarus longs for literary tradition that makes 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.720 sense of her own life as an American writer, and 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.359 not one that's defined by the European tradition. The final 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.160 stanza of that work reads, the echo faints and fails. 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.560 It suiteth not upon this Western plane our voice or spirit. 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.880 We should stir again the wilderness and make the plane 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.640 resound unto a yet unheard of strain. Another poem in 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.320 Admetus is in the Jewish Synagogue at Newport, which is 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.360 a take on Longfellows the Jewish Cemetery at Newport. This 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.640 poem touches on the many moments that take place and 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.880 a synagogue so there's worship and weddings and funerals, and 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.640 it's her first poetic effort at really trying to capture 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.800 Jewish life. In eighteen seventy four, she published a novel, 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.280 a Lead, an Episode in Guerta's Life. This is the 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.359 only novel that she ever wrote, and it is based 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.960 on Guerta's own autobiographical accounts of his life experiences. It 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.599 tells the story of a young Gerta falling in love 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.640 with a man in the country and ultimately leaving her 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.719 for his work. In eighteen seventy six, she wrote a 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.400 play in verse called The Spagnoletto. In this work, which 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.360 is a five act tragedy, was published privately. She published 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.240 a number of poems in the second half of the 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.440 eighteen seventies in the early eighteen eighties, mostly in the 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.160 periodicals Lippincott's Century and The New York Times. In eighteen 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.080 eighty one, she published a full book of translations of 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.320 Heinrich Kenna's works, titled Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heina. 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.800 That same year, she published an essay titled American Literature 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.679 in defense of the work of writers in the United 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.080 States as just as valid as the writing of their 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:45.040 European predecessors and counterparts. Having studied literature, I think that 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.480 was an argument people were still making and are still 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.840 making a hundred years later. Certainly. Yeah, it was something 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.160 that it was another part of that sense of otherness 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.000 that she kind of always felt that. She was like, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.160 I feel like we're doing great work over here, but 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.640 everyone is like, oh no, really, the seat of culture 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.880 and literature is clearly still Europe, which I imagine is 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.720 really frustrating for writers that are are doing really good work. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:18.000 Um Emma Lazarus was increasingly devoted to activism against anti 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.720 Semitism in her twenties and thirties. She became a vocal 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.160 advocate for New York's Jewish refugee population, and she spoke 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.400 out against the anti Semitism that was rampant in Eastern Europe, 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.880 writing both essays and poetry on the subject. In Tight two, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.920 she published a collection titled Songs of a Semite that 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.240 Danced to Death and Other Poems. And publishing this work, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.239 Lazarus became a really controversial figure. There was the obvious 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.680 issue of anti Semitism to deal with, but in proclaiming 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.760 her Jewishness so clearly it ran really counter to the 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.120 ideology of people like her father, who wanted to retain 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.439 their cultural identity in a more private way to try 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.880 to avoid causing conflict. In addition two Songs of a 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.880 Semi Lazarus became a regular contributor to the Journal's American 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.440 Hebrew UH and The Century, in which she published several 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.680 essays from April eighteen eighty two to February eighteen eighty three. 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.520 The essays was the Earl of Beaconsfield, a Representative Jew, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:22.200 Russian Christianity Versus Modern Judaism, and the Jewish Problem. All 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.800 examined the issue of Jews in society, who she wrote, 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.000 were faded to forever be antagonized by those around them. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.040 And it was in reaction to the prejudice against Jews 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.079 that she witnessed that she started to promote the pre 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.319 Zionist idea that a Jewish state needed to be established 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.679 in Palestine. This was before Zionism was really coined and 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.360 pushed by other people. In a moment, we'll talk about 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.079 some of the other advocacy that Emma Lazarus engaged in, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:57.360 but we're going to pause first for a brief sponsor break. 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.560 Emma's activism was not and find just to her writing, though, 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.480 as a way to help Jewish refugees build a better 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.640 life in the US, she helped found the Hebrew Technical 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.280 Institute of New York, and there immigrants could receive vocational 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:15.040 training to help ensure some sort of financial stability in 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.360 their new lives. In eighteen eighty two, she worked hands 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.640 on at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, teaching English and 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.200 assisting with lessons that would help immigrants merge with American society. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.520 That year and estimated two thousand Russian Jewish immigrants were 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.720 arriving in New York. Every month, she visited the homes 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.040 of immigrants on Wards Island, and she was somewhat horrified 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.080 at the conditions there. The island had been made into 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.560 an overflow camp for refugees, as other facilities in Brooklyn 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.000 could just no longer take any more people they were 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:50.800 completely full. On March eighty two, a piece that appears 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:52.880 to have been written by Lazarus appeared in the New 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.679 York Times, although it ran uncredited, and the article casts 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.680 a sympathetic eye on the people at Ward's Island and 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.320 how many of them were people of high esteem in 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.600 their homeland, who in seeking refuge, we're going to start 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.839 their new lives completely penniless. And it goes on to 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.480 challenge and disassemble a lot of the stereotypes that Russian 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.640 Jewish immigrants endured in New York, and it's stressed that 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.439 they wished only to breathe the air of freedom. Lazarus 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.319 spent some time in the mid eighteen eighties traveling abroad 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.920 after she published Songs of a Semite. She visited both 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.480 England and France, and it was during her first trip 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.960 there in eighteen eighty three that she met and befriended 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:35.280 Robert Browning, William Morris, and Henry James, among others. Yeah, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.280 because she was uh already really well known in literary 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.760 circles in the US, and she was from a wealthy family, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.319 one she could afford to travel, and too, she had 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.640 pretty easy introductions to a lot of society people throughout Europe, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.880 so she made a lot of very high profile friends. 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.960 And that same year she also wrote a letter to 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.320 her friend and publisher Philip Cowant, referencing an article that 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.240 she had recently read the had a decidedly anti Semitic tone. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.560 She wrote quote to refer to the Sun article. It 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.520 seems to me so coarse and vulgar that it deserves 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.320 no reply from any self respecting Jew. It represents the 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.719 habitual light in which we are regarded as a race 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.360 by the Christians, but it happens to be couched in 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.920 somewhat more offensive terms than usual. I am perfectly conscious 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.080 that this contempt and hatred underlies the general tone of 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.480 the community towards us. And yet when I even remotely 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.920 hint at the fact that we are not a favorite people, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.559 I am accused of stirring up strife and setting barriers 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:39.120 between the two sects. The particular article ought, in my opinion, 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.800 to be treated with absolute contempt. It is too vile 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.920 to touch. In late three she penned the poem that 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.400 would become her most famous, The New Colossus. The New 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.800 Colossus is a sonnet, and you might not know it 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.079 by name, but you almost certainly know at least a 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:56.959 couple of lines from it. We're going to get to 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.000 the poem itself, and just the moment the New Colossus. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.320 This was actually written for charity. Lazarus wrote it so 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.840 it could be auctioned off to raise money for the 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.480 Pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. While France was giving 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.720 the US the statue as a gift, it was up 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:13.800 to the States to pay for a base that would 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.000 support the massive monument, and this was something of an 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.960 issue of contention. Coming up with the money to pay 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.079 for a pedestal was a challenge, and there was a 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.600 very real sentiment against the entire affair based on the 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.439 idea that the whole thing was making the US look bad. 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.280 I'm gonna say it's not completely unheard of for there 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:37.319 to be a gift like this that costs the recipient money, 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:42.280 especially when it's a giant statue. Despite the negative opinion 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.960 of a gift that also required significant expense on the 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.560 part of the recipient just to receive the gift, the 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.000 New York literary community rallied to try to raise funds 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.760 for the base. The Art Loan Fund, Exhibition and Aid 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.120 of the Bartholdy Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.760 was mounted and this was an auction of art and 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.760 literature created especially for the occasion, and it was managed 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.559 by the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty. Emma 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.199 Lazarus had been asked to participate by William Maxwell Everts, 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.640 who was chairman of the American Committee for the Statue 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:19.000 of Liberty, and the writer Constance Carrie Harrison, and Lazarus 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.640 was reluctant initially. She was not accustomed to doing commissions, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.760 and she didn't write if she didn't feel moved to 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.120 do so, so this idea of writing on command was 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.560 not really in her wheelhouse normally. As she approached this poem, 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.040 Lazarus imagined how the statue might regard the old world, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.600 and her work and advocating for the immigrant community really 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.400 informed the voice that she gave the statue. W she 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.840 considered the Mother of Exiles. She wrote the New Colossus 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.200 on November two three, and it's pretty short, so we're 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.920 going to read it in its entirety. Not like the 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.320 brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:00.000 land to land. Here at our seawashed sunset, gates shall stay, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.920 and a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.440 the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:12.200 her beacon hand glows worldwide. Welcome her mild eyes command 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.720 the air bridged harbor that twins cities frame, Keep ancient lands, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.240 your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.400 You're tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe, free, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.760 the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.480 homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:38.000 the golden door. So that brazen giant that she mentions 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.560 in the first line is a reference to the Ancient 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.240 Colossus of Rhodes, which was a statue built somewhere between 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.480 two ninety two and two a d. B. C. E. 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.080 To commemorate a military conquest, and Lazarus characterizes the new 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.840 monument in contrast as a welcoming presence rather than a 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.240 conquering one. The poem was read at the auction on 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.520 in December three, but not at the dedication of the 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.840 Statue of Liberty in eighteen eighty six. Later, the New 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.360 Colossus was published in the New York Times and in 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.000 Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, but it quickly faded from 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.120 public consciousness. And we are actually about to talk about 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.240 the end of Emma Lazarus's short life, but we're going 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.360 to take a quick break before we do. To hear 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.320 from one of the fantastic sponsors that keep our show going. 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:35.480 In March eight five, Emma's father, Moses Lazarus, died, and 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.760 in April she set sail for Europe once again. This 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.000 trip was a very long one. She kept traveling right 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.640 into eighteen eighty seven. She started with visits to Yorkshire 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.880 and London before moving on to the Netherlands, France and Italy, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:51.040 but by the end of the year she was not 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.160 feeling well. She continued her travels in eighteen eighty six 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.920 despite feeling ill. First she went back to England and 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.920 then Holland and Paris, and she'd been planning another visit 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.680 to Italy but ended up staying in Paris into seven 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.000 because she just couldn't travel anymore. She stayed in Paris 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.800 for six months before returning to New York in July, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.639 and that time she had developed a facial paralysis. She 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.960 had lost her hearing in one year. Her eyesight had 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:20.280 declined to the point that she could barely see. Her 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.600 younger sister Annie had been with her in Europe and 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.919 took care of her as she convalesced and took dictations 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:30.160 so that Emma could keep up her correspondence. Lazarus never 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.359 got to witness her poems rise to fame. She died 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.639 on November nineteenth of eighteen eighty seven, and while her 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.199 illness was never properly diagnosed, it is likely, based on 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.040 the evidence UH and based on what people have gathered, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.160 that she probably died from Hodgkin lymphoma. She was only 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.919 thirty eight. The funeral was held at her home in 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.640 New York, and then she was buried in Cypress Hills 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.240 in Brooklyn. The December issue of American Hebrew was a 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.920 memorial to Emma Lazarus. It was more than twenty pages long, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.680 are than normal to accommodate all the poems and other 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.680 various tributes that writers had sent for inclusion. The New 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.800 Colossus went largely unmentioned in obituaries and writings about her 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.760 after her death, aside from a tribute written by Constance 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.080 Carrie Harrison Yea that was the writer who had asked 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.880 her specifically to please write that poem. In the year 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.840 after Emma died, her cousins set up the Emma Lazarus 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.680 Club for Working Girls, and there young women immigrants could 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.320 learn marketable skills such as sewing or clerical practices, but 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.600 they could also study literature if they wanted to. This 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.040 charitable effort troubled her immediate family, though they had never 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.800 been entirely comfortable with Emma's activism, after her death, they 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.000 had shifted the narrative of her life a little bit, 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.600 playing down her controversial Zionist views. As you recalled from 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.680 the beginning of the episode, her father had consciously worked 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.560 to blend in with New York society and really played 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.439 down the family's Jewish heritage. The family refused to allow 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.960 any of Emma's pro Jewish poetry to be reprinted after 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:06.320 her death. When her sisters Josephine and Annie published the 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:10.440 two volumes set the Poems of Emma Lazarus In, Josephine 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.160 wrote a biographical sketch of Emma. Yeah, that sketch got 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.400 reprinted in a lot of places, and that's really kind 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.880 of where her life story got a little bit um 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.080 shifted around, where it wasn't quite an accurate portrayal of 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:28.720 her anymore, but more like a very niceified version that 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.880 left out any of her controversial views. In nineteen o one, 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.600 though the New Colossus was rediscovered by Georgina Skyler, who 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.439 was a friend of Emma's and Skylar had found the 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.840 poem in a book that she happened upon in a bookshop, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.520 and she was inspired to resurrect her friend's work, and 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.119 through Skylar's efforts, in nineteen oh three, the new colossus 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.760 was inscribed on a plaque, and that plaque was hung 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.160 inside the museum in the statue of Liberty's Pedestal, where 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.600 it remains to this day. The Emma Lazarus Federation of 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.840 Jewish Women's Clubs was formed in nineteen forty four by 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.800 the Women's Division of the Jewish People's Fraternal Order of 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.000 the International Workers Order for the i w O. It 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.199 was founded as a wartime relief group, combating racism and 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:15.960 fostering positivity in Jewish identity. From its founding until its 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.240 dissolution in ninety nine, the group had at times been 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.440 labeled as subversive and radical, and it did have ties 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.639 to communism. It also went through various re orgs, but 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.879 it was always focused on women's issues. The group didn't 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.000 only advocate for Jewish women's causes, though that was its 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:36.199 primary focus. The Emma Lazarus Federation joined forces with the 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.600 Black Women's Group SO Journals for truth and justice during 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.560 the fifties and sixties, and it also pressured the U. 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.080 S Government to ratify the nineteen forty eight Genocide Convention. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.240 At its highest level of activity, the Mma Lazarus Federation 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.639 had one hundred clubs within it, with membership totaling between 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.840 four thousand and five thousand women. In Subways. Lazarus has 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.080 become more enigmatic since her death. Questions related to her 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.000 spinster lifestyle arose in the second half of the twentieth century, 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.720 when a signet that she wrote titled Assurance was published 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:14.040 for the first time. The signet begins, last night I slept, 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.119 and when I woke her kiss still floated on my lips. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:22.040 The poem describes a dream of a romantic forest interlude. 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:25.760 I would go so far as to say an erotic 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.919 forest interlude that concludes with the woman referenced in the 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.920 first line whispering quote and didst thou dream this could 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:38.680 be buried, this could be asleep and love bethrall to death. Nay, 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.480 what's soo? Seem Have faith, dear heart, this is the 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:47.480 thing that is. The sonnet has naturally fueled speculation about 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:51.359 Emma Lazarus's sexual identity. She had included it in an 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.879 anthology of her own work that she was preparing just 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.600 before she died. She understood that she was not going 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.600 to survive, and she was really focused on her poetry surviving. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.320 But this poem was undated, which was unusual for her work. 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:05.280 She had to have known it would be a little 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:09.520 bit controversial, but this poem, like her activism, was omitted 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.040 from the work by her sister's author Esther Shore, in 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.080 her two thousand six biography of Emma Lazarus, discussed this 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.520 poem and made a case that it can be interpreted 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.719 as much about and simply embracing one's own sexuality as 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.959 anything else. She said quote she wrote the poem as 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.199 a dream vision and left it undated, not to elude us, 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.359 but to redirect us. What the poem exposes is her 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.160 unconscious and it tells us that she met it, if 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.640 not a female lover face to face, and the sonnet 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.120 the lover's enigmatic assurance is that this is the thing 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.640 that is means in another idiom, this is the real thing, 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.760 but it's also a thing that is real beyond denial 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.040 or repression. Assurance is not a poem about choosing a lover. 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.040 It is about being chosen by desire. It is a 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.280 love poem, yes, but also a poem of vocation, about 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.560 being called by eros to a vital sexual life. That is, 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.440 of course one interpretation. That's the thing about poetry. Other 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:10.080 people can interpret different ways. I had a definite interpretation 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:13.160 when I read it. That is not something we could 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:17.240 really repeat in the podcast. All right, then? Uh. There 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.879