Maud Russell

Maud Muriel Russell (August 9, 1893 – November 8, 1989) was an American social worker, educator, and writer. She is best remembered for her work as a social and political activist for the YWCA in China from 1917 to 1943. Returning to New York, she served as the executive director of the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy from 1946 to 1951 and contributed to the journal Far East Reporter from 1953 until her death from lung cancer in 1989.

Russell was outspoken on the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s and wrote many works and articles documenting it. In 1971, she was one of the inaugural members of the United States-China People's Friendship Association.

Of British and Scottish descent, Russell was born in Hayward, California. Her parents were Thomas Russell and Lelia May (née Smalley); siblings included Jean, Thomas, Lloyd, Lelia, and David. Russell studied at University of California, Berkeley, where she began her affiliation with the Young Women's Christian Association, and here she met Mary Ingle Bentley (1878–1940), who became her life companion. She studied for her master's degree at Columbia University.

Russell arrived in China in 1917. Upon arrival, she studied the language in Nanjing, and was subsequently appointed by the YWCA at a post in Changsha in Hunan. She worked in Changsha from 1919 to 1924, and later from 1928 to 1930, and again in 1932 to 1933. When Changsha was invaded by the revolutionary army of Chiang Kai-shek in 1930, Russell refused to leave the city and was mistakenly thought to have perished; a memorial service was held for her.

During the 1930s, a turbulent and dangerous time to work in China during civil war and war with Japan, she worked mainly at the headquarters of the YWCA in Shanghai. She participated in a Marxist study group which included the likes of Rewi Alley, Lily Haass, Talitha Gerlach and Cora Deng.

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