Thekla M. Bernays | |
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| Born | 1856 Highland, Illinois |
| Died | January 30, 1931 (aged 74–75) New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | McKendree College |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, Suffragist |
Thekla M. Bernays (1856 – January 30, 1931) was an American author, journalist, artist, art collector, speaker, and suffragette.
Bernays was born in Highland, Illinois, in 1856, the second child of Dr. George J. Bernays (d. 1888) and Minna Bertrand. [1] She was the granddaughter of Clemens Bernays, and great-granddaughter of Jacob Gera Bernays. The Bernays family has many cultural ties in history. Thekla's mother was the daughter of Frederick Doering, of Germany, and granddaughter of Seris Bertrand, of France. [1] Her parents met in Germany but married in St. Louis at the residence of Henry Boernstein, well known theatrical manager and head of a newspaper at that time. [1] [2] Her brother was Dr. Augustus Charles Bernays (1854–1907), a St. Louis surgeon. Bernays would later publish her brother's memoir in 1912. [3] [4]
When Bernays was young, the family moved back to Germany for a time before moving back to the United States, landing in St. Louis. They would eventually settle in Lebanon, Illinois, in 1866. [1]
Bernays and her brother both attended McKendree College, located in Lebanon. [4] Bernays was twice elected at president of one of the college's literary societies, the Clionian, and ranked high as an essayist. [1]
Soon after Bernay's brother's graduation from McKendree College in 1872, the family returned to Germany. For the next five years, they made their home in Heidelberg. Bernays' studies continued in a school for the higher education of women, since women were not admitted to university. In May 1874, a state examination for teachers was held at Karlsruhe, the capital of Grand Duchy of Baden. Bernays, then scarcely eighteen years old, received the highest grade given at the examination.
The family returned to America in the spring of 1877. [1] In November 1888, Bernays' father died of blood poisoning, which was contracted during an operation. [5]
In 1902, Bernays was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Arts from McKendree College for "meritorious work in the criticism of art and modern literature". At the time, she was the third woman at the college to receive that honor. [1]
Bernays was a foreign correspondent for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and contributed to Reedy's Mirror , the Westliche Post , The Criterion , and other publications. [4]
As a speaker and lecturer, Bernays delivered addresses and read papers before many societies and clubs, including the Young Men's Self-Culture Club, a similar organization for working girls, the St. Louis Negro Self-Culture Association, the Wednesday Club, the Greek Ethics Society, and the Century Club. One of the papers read was printed as a Christmas souvenir, Diplomatic Women; an Essay Read Before the Century Club of St. Louis, Mo., by Miss Thekla M. Bernays. An address delivered before the St. Louis Wednesday Club on "Postulating an American Literature," and which was printed in the "Bulletin" of Washington University, attracted much attention. [1]
Bernays was a charter member of the St. Louis Artists Guild. The building at 812 Union Boulevard was designed by her nephew Louis C. Spiering, perhaps due to her recommendation. She was also a member of the Arts & Crafts jury for the St. Louis World's Fair or Louisiana Purchase Exposition. [6]
In December 1911, Bernays wrote a decalogue for women: [3]
Bernays was a member of an artists group active from 1890 to 1910, which included Zoe Akins, Sara Teasdale, Orrick Glenday Johns, and William Marion Reedy. [4] Reedy said of Bernays that she had the greatest woman's mind he had ever known. He found her both wise and innocent, discerning and gentle. It was Reedy who introduced Bernays to Akins, and the two women became lifelong friends. [7]
Bernays corresponded with notable American literary figures including Gertrude Atherton, Albert Bloch, Daniel Frohman, Frank Harris, Mitchell Kennerley, and George O'Neil. [4]
Bernays was an art collector. She owned Leandro Bassano's version of The Adoration of the Shepherds, which she would eventually gift to the Brooklyn Museum; the museum sold it in 2013 through Sotheby's, attributing it to a "follower of" Bassano. [8]
In 1897, Thekla adopted her nephew, Eric Simons Bernays (1884–1935), son of her sister Lily Bernays and Frederick Simons. In 1885, Eric Simons was the subject of a custody battle between his father, Simons, his mother Lily, and Lily and Thekla's father, George Bernays. In the late 1890s, Thekla moved with Eric to Switzerland where he attended the Ecole de Commerce at Neufchâtel. They returned to St. Louis around 1902 and lived in the Bernays "compound". Eric was struck by an automobile while crossing a street and died of his injuries in 1935. [9]
Bernays died January 30, 1931, in New York, and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. [4]
The Thekla M. Bernays Papers, 1870–1931, are housed at the Missouri History Museum archives. [4] The Thekla M. Bernays Scholarship is awarded by the Art Students League of New York. [10]
Edward Louis Bernays was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.
Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the Louis Sullivan-designed Wainwright Tomb, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ethel Hedgeman Lyle was a founder of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority (ΑΚΑ) at Howard University in 1908. It was the first sorority founded by African-American college women. Lyle is often referred to as the "Guiding Light" for the organization.
Anne Schaefer was an American actress. She appeared in 147 films between 1911 and 1938. She was the aunt of fellow actresses Eva and Jane Novak.
Mary Foote Henderson was an American author, real estate developer, and social activist from the U.S. state of New York who was known as "The Empress of Sixteenth Street". Henderson was a notable supporter of women's suffrage, temperance and vegetarianism.
The Anzeiger des Westens was the first German-language newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and, along with the Westliche Post and the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, one of the three most successful German-language papers in the Midwest serving the German-American population with news and features. In the 1840s, it is thought to have been the newspaper with the largest circulation of any newspaper in any language in Missouri.
Edna Fischel Gellhorn was an American suffragist and reformer who helped found the League of Women Voters.
Karl Ludwig Bernays, baptized Ferdinand Cölestin Bernays and also known as Charles Louis Bernays, was a German journalist and associate of Karl Marx. Emigrating to the United States in the late 1840s, he worked as a journalist in Missouri and held a number of important positions in the Republican Party.
Lillie Rose Ernst was an American educator. She was the mentor of the Potters, an informal group of women artists in early 20th-century St. Louis, Missouri, and the first woman to become assistant superintendent of instruction in the St. Louis public school system.
Amabel Anderson Arnold LL.M. was an American lawyer and law professor who organized the Woman's State Bar Association of Missouri, the first association of women lawyers in the world.
Adeline Palmier Wagoner was an American volunteer organizational leader and author. She served as president of the St. Louis, Missouri, branch of the National Plant, Flower and Fruit Guild, a charity for the poor and afflicted, and as president of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Society.
Annie Berenice Crumb Wyer was an American pianist, composer, and lecturer. Wyer composed for both piano and organ, and wrote art song and works for violin. She collaborated with Ethan Allen Taussig in performances of spoken recitation accompanied by the piano.
The Potters was an informal group of American female artists in St. Louis, Missouri, who printed their original art, poetry and prose in The Potter's Wheel, a monthly artistic and literary magazine produced from November 1904 to October 1907. The group was mentored by Lillie Rose Ernst, assistant superintendent of education in the St. Louis public school system. Several members of the group went on to have successful careers in the arts, notably Sara Teasdale, Caroline Risque, and the Parrish Sisters.
Jane Frances Winn who wrote as Frank Fair, called the "dean of newspaper women" in St. Louis, was an influential American journalists of the early 20th century. By 1903 she was recognized as a journalist to whom "even men" paid their homage: The Journalist, a New York City weekly periodical about newspaper people and their work, profiled Winn in its series of prominent writers.
The Jewish Bernays family has its recent origins in the town of Groß-Gerau in the German state of Hesse, where the patriarch of the family, Rabbiner Beer Neustädtel lived with his family. Two of his sons, Isaac, born in 1742 and Jacob, born in 1747 went on to establish very influential and well known dynasties in Europe, England, USA and Australia. During the French occupation of the Mainz region in the 1800s, all families were required under the Code of Napoleon to register an identifiable family name and in doing so, to gain considerable freedoms including ability to attend university. It was at that time that the family registered the name "Bernays" in lieu of Beer or Baer.
Emme Gerhard (1872–1946) and Mayme Gerhard (1876–1955), the Gerhard Sisters, were among the first women photographers to establish a studio in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1903. At the time newspapers and magazines rarely hired women as staff photographers to capture late breaking news.
Hattie B. Gooding was a publicity agent who organized the St. Louis, Missouri, Women's City Club, forerunner to the Town Club and wrote advertising for the Lesan Advertising Company, later Gardner Advertising Company.
Stella Weiner Kriegshaber was a noted American pianist.
Florence Hayward was a St. Louis, Missouri, writer, best known for her Travel Letters. She was a self made woman and felt no need for women's suffrage.
Frances Porcher (1853–1935) was an American writer and journalist.
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