Meridel LeSueur
| Meridel Le Sueur | |
|---|---|
Meridel Le Sueur (middle) with writers Audre Lorde (left) and Adrienne Rich (right) at a writing workshop in Austin, Texas, 1980
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| Born |
Meridel Wharton February 22, 1900 Murray, Iowa |
| Died | November 14, 1996 (aged 96) Hudson, Wisconsin |
| Alma mater | American Academy of Dramatic Arts |
| Occupation | Writer, actress, stuntwoman, journalist |
| Movement | Proletarian literature |
| Spouse(s) | Harry Rice |
| Children | Rachel (b. 1928) and Deborah (b. 1930) |
| Parent(s) | William Winston Wharton, Marian "Mary Del" Lucy; stepfather, Arthur LeSueur |
Meridel Le Sueur (February 22, 1900, Murray, Iowa – November 14, 1996, Hudson, Wisconsin) was an American writer associated with the proletarian movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota.
Le Sueur, the daughter of William Winston Wharton and Marian "Mary Del" Lucy, was born into a family of social and political activists. Her grandfather was a supporter of the Protestant fundamentalist temperance movement, and she "grew up among the radical farmer and labor groups ... like the Populists, the Farmers' Alliance and the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World." Le Sueur was heavily influenced by poems and stories that she heard from Native American women.
"After a year studying dance and physical fitness at the American College of Physical Education in Chicago, Illinois, Meridel moved to New York City, where she lived in an anarchist commune with Emma Goldman and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts." Her acting career primarily took place in California, where she worked in Hollywood as an extra in The Perils of Pauline and Last of the Mohicans, as a stuntwoman in silent movies, and as a writer and journalist.
Starting in her late teens, she wrote for liberal newspapers about unemployment, migrant workers, and the Native American fight for autonomy. By 1925, she had become a member of the Communist Party.
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