Talitha Gerlach
| Talitha A. Gerlach | |
|---|---|
Gerlach on Great Wall of China on 25 September 1983
|
|
| Born |
6 March 1896 Pittsburgh, US |
| Died | 12 February 1995 (aged 98) Shanghai, China |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | YMCA worker |
Talitha A. Gerlach (Chinese: 耿丽淑 – Geng Lishu; 6 March 1896 – 12 February 1995) was an American YMCA worker who spent most of her life as a social worker in Shanghai, China, where she died. She received various awards from the Shanghai and Chinese governments.
Talitha Gerlach was born in Pittsburgh, to a family of German origin. She was the daughter of a Methodist Minister and spent her childhood near Columbia, Ohio. She earned a bachelor's degree in Social Economics at the North Western Christian University (Butler College) in 1920. She intended to go into social work and joined the campus branch of the YWCA. She became a student adviser with the YWCA. She began work with the YWCA traveling in the Mid-West of the United States. In 1923 she met Ida Pruitt, who had grown up in China where her parents were Southern Baptist missionaries. Pruitt influenced her to accept a position as a YWCA foreign secretary in China.
Gerlach went to Shanghai in 1926 to organize a YWCA office. In April 1927 she met and befriended the YWCA secretary Maud Russell, who had been forced to leave Wuchang due to the civil war. That year Gerlach joined a political study group in Shanghai with progressive foreigners such as Rewi Alley,Agnes Smedley and George Hatem (Ma Haide). Other members of the study group, which usually met in Alley's house, included YWCA secretaries Maud Russell, Lily Haass and Deng Yuzhi.
Gerlach came to the conclusion that the sincere, capable and forward-looking Communists were best able to change China from a poor country oppressed by foreigners into a strong, wealthy and independent nation. She also thought that YWCA training would help women become leaders during and after the coming Communist revolution. Alley and Gerlach contacted progressive organizations in China and campaigned to improve social, political and economic conditions. Gerlach was concerned about the practice of binding the feet of women and children in China, which she called inhumane and a perversion of beauty. According to Helen Foster Snow, a journalist in China in the 1930s and wife of Edgar Snow,
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