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August 19, 1983 - Image 10

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1983-08-19

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‘,

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10 Friday, August 19, 1903

11 1.?‘!ri.ii[IU 4

!

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS





Madison Reveals Lewtsohn Agony, Achievement

(Continued from Page 1)
foreign fruit company
which failed within three
months. Despondent at
being a ne'er-do-well, he
readily acted on the sugges-
tion of his wealthy relatives
that he migrate to South

Carolina, where a cousin of
his wife had already estab-
lished himself in one of the
small towns. With his little
capital he opened a clothing
store, but he could not make
it profitable and moved to
Charleston where he be-

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came a furniture salesman.
There were no public
schools in Charleston in
1890, and Lewisohn was
enrolled in a Methodist
elementary school. Re-
pelled by the chewing-
tobacco spit of his
teacher, he persuaded his
mother to prepare him
for high school. Having
no inkling of his Jewish
background, he was
readily attracted to his
prevailing Christian
milieu. He attended Sun-
day school and often re-
mained for the church
service. As he stated la-
ter, "I accepted the Gos-
pel story and the obvious
implications of Pauline
Christianity without
question,." Unlike his
parents, however, who
clung to their German
cultural upbringing,
Lewisohn
became
thoroughly
Americanized.
At the age of 12 he

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entered the Methodist high
school and was.• puzzled
when some of the boys re-
ferred to him as a Jew. He
made few friends. Taking
advantage of his father's
membership in the local li-
brary society, he read books
available to him. About that
time he began to write
verse, and his translation of
several of Horace's poems
was praised by his teacher
and parents. When he
graduated at age 15, he
entered the College of Char-
leston. His growing admira-
tion of English and Ameri-
can literature furthered his
aspiration to become a
teacher of English.
On graduating with honors
and elected to Phi Beta
Kappa, he was offered a
teaching position in an
Episcopal school. But the
aged minister who owned
the school rose from a sick-
bed to veto the appoint-
ment. Puzzled and per-
turbed to have been disqual-
ified because of . his
presumed Jewishness, he
was advised by a friendly
teacher to do graduate
study in a northern univer-
sity as the best means of ob-
taining employment as a
teacher.
Borrowing the re-
quired money, he entered
the graduate school at
Columbia University. In
the second year he
applied for a teaching
post to several colleges,
but no offers came. Notic-
ing that fellow students
whom he considered in-
ferior to himself did get
offers, he inquired about _
it to the secretary of the
department and was in-
formed "how terribly
hard it was for a man of
Jewish faith to get a good
position." Lewisohn felt
devastated;
For years a presumed
Christian, naively ignoring
his Jewish birth, he could

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not understand why he was
being stigmatized as a Jew.
After obtaining his MA de-
gree one of his teachers
helped him get work with a
specialized publishing firm.
Leading a lonely And in-
secure life in New York,
longing for feminine affec-
tion and troubled by his
failure to gain the friend-
ship of any girl, chance
brought him the acquain-
tance of Mary Childs, a
woman of 42 years, divorced
and the mother of four chil-
dren. Nineteen years his
senior, she was still attrac-
tive enough to appeal to the
gullible and feminine-
hungry Lewisohn. In his in-
nocence he accepted her ad-
vances — only to be told by
her that he had to marry
her. Later he wrote: "I
plunged into the adventure
that darkened a large part
of my life."
•Still not fully aware of his
commitment and eager to
write fiction, he decided to
live with his parents in
Charleston until he was
able to earn some money
from his writing. Mary,
however, wrote him letters
that aroused his desire to be
with her, and he gained his
mother's consent for Mary
to visit him.
Unaware of the pain his
dismal marriage was
causing his parents, he
wrote a number of stories
only to find that maga-
zine editors wanted
romantic endings. He
next decided to write a
novel, but that too was
promptly rejected. De-
pressed by failure, and
having become painfully
aware of the burden he
was putting on his over-
worked father, he and
Mary returned to New
York.
To earn some money he
began to write for Munsey
magazines, mechanically
contrived narratives for
which he was paid a cent a
word. He also managed to
interest a small publisher in
his novel, but it failed to,at-
tract Victorian-oriented
readers. He also did
hackwork for magazines
and book publishers, earn-
ing less than Mary needed
for herself and her children.
In 1910, Lewisohn's
Columbia classmate,
William Ellery Leonard,
learning of his financial
plight, persuaded the head
of the German department
of the University of Wison-
sin to employ Lewisohn as a
teacher of German at a sal-
ary of $1,000 a year. In need
of additional income, he
translated German books
for B. W. Huebsch. He also
wrote a study of "German
Style" to enhance his posi-
tion in the department.
For some years this oner-
ous economic burden had
been making him acutely
aware of his tragic marital
misstep, but he was still too
conventional and idealistic
to consider drastic action.
A year later, a col-
league of his was ap-
pointed head of the Ger-
man department at Ohio
State University and per-

suaded Lewisohn to go
with him by offering him
an additional $400 in sal-
ary.
As late as 1913 he still did
not think of himself as a Jew
and refused Horace Kallen's
invitation to help him es-
trablish a Menora Society in
the University of Wiscon-
sin.
Some of his colleagues,
however, considered hini a
Jew, and with the outbreak
of World War I began to agi-
tate against him as a Ger-
man sympathizer. So viru-
lent had this antipathy be-
come by 1917 that he took
advantage of his entitled
sabbatical and he and his
family left for New York.
Shortly after Armistice in
November 1918, Lewisohn
was offered the position of
dramatic critic on "The Na-
tion. Soon associating for
the first time with literary
and theatrical men and
women who shared his
humanitarian and artistic
views, he became all the
more conscious of his mari-
tal mess and resolved to free
himself from it. He had
come to despise Mary and
her- children, and his re-
sentment against them fed
on the memory of his
drudgery to support their
extravagances.
His wide and profound
erudition in dramaturgy
had gradually estab-
lished him as the most
perceptive critic of the
contemporary theater.
His growing reputation
brought him offers of re-
munerative . lectures
across the country. His
appointment as associate
editor enabled him also
to review books and
write editorials and arti-
cles on topics of interest
to him.
Lewisohn had now become
fully aware of his intrinsic
Jewishness and decided to
write about his life as a
youth and young man in
order to indicate why he had
never thought of being
Jewish, why he accepted
Christianity as a matter of
course, and how he suffered
for many years from anti-
Semitism. The book, "Up
Stream" (1922), written in
impassioned and persuasive
prose, was a devastating in-
dictment of his American
milieu.
For Lewisohn had made
crystal clear his dedication
to the ideals of the Founding
Fathers and his intellectual
preparation to teach the
language he loved — only to
be rejected and insulted be-
cause of his Jewish origin.
Despite the expected un-
favorable criticism of con-
servative reviewers, the
book's popularity and effec-
tiveness were unusually
widespread, making it a
landmark addition to the
American literature of the
1920 s .
(Charles Madison's
biography of Ludwig
Lewisohn will be contin-
ued in next week's
Jewish News). .

Don't build on shifting
sands.

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