Esther Shemitz

Esther Shemitz

Daumier's "Uprising" (c. 1848) influenced Shemitz's style
Born (1900-06-25)June 25, 1900
New York, New York
Died August 16, 1986(1986-08-16) (aged 86)
Westminster, Maryland
Nationality American
Other names Esther Shemitz, Mrs. Whittaker Chambers
Education Rand School, Leonardo da Vinci Art School
Alma mater Art Students League
Occupation Artist (painter), illustrator
Years active 1925–1980
Known for Testified for husband Whittaker Chambers during Hiss Case
Spouse(s) Whittaker Chambers
Children daughter, son
Parent(s) Rose Thorner, Benjamin Shemitz
Relatives Reuben Shemitz (brother), Nathan Levine (nephew), Sylvan Shemitz (nephew)
Website whittakerchambers.org

Esther Shemitz (1900–1986), also known as "Esther Chambers" and "Mrs. Whittaker Chambers," was a 20th-Century American painter and illustrator who, as wife of ex-Soviet spy Whittaker Chambers, provided testimony that "helped substantiate" her husband's allegations during the Hiss Case.[1][2][3][4][5]

Biography

Lusk Committee raids Rand School summer 1919: Shemitz studied there at this time

Shemitz was born on June 25, 1900, in New York City. She was the youngest child of Rabbi Benjamin Shemitz and Rose Thorner, who soon moved from New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, where they ran a candy store.[6] [7] The family had immigrated to the U.S. in the 1890s from the "Podolsk Province."[8]

In 1920, Shemitz graduated from the Rand School.[9] At Rand in the same period were Nerma Berman, the wife of the Soviet spy Cy Oggins, and CPUSA Fosterite Carrie Katz, the first wife of philosopher Sidney Hook.[10][11][12]

Early career

Art Students League (2009), where Shemitz studied in the mid-1920s

Painter, illustrator

During the early 1920s, Shemitz took a job at a chapter of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) under Juliet Stuart Poyntz in return for a stipend to the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. In 1926, she roomed on East 11 Street on the Lower East Side with writer Grace Lumpkin and they both worked at The World Tomorrow magazine.[13] On behalf of the magazine, Shemitz took Rebecca West to see the Passaic Textile Strike, where Shemtiz was beaten and arrested. She also served as the advertising manager at the New Masses in 1926.[14][15][16]

In the latter 1920s, she studied at the Art Students League under Boardman Robinson, Jan Matulka and Thomas Hart Benton. Her classmates included Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and muralist Jacob Burck and writer-illustrator Irwin Shapiro. She also contributed cartoons to the Daily Worker newspaper.[13]

In 1929, she was one of many signatories to form the John Reed Club in New York. She illustrated books for International Publishers, notably Labor and Silk by Grace Hutchins (1929), with a cover designed by Louis Lozowick.[13] Other artists who contributed to books published by Alexander Trachtenberg included William Siegel and Hugo Gellert.[17]

United Workers Cooperatives, 2700-2870 Bronx Park East, Bronx, NY 10467, where Shemitz and fellow artists exhibited in 1929

At year-end 1929, she partook in the first-ever art exhibition of the club, held at the United Workers Cooperatives apartment buildings (also called the "United Workers Cooperative Colony" and the "Commie Coops") on Bronx Park East. Artists in the show included: Jacob Burck, Fred Ellis, William Gropper, Eitaro Ishigaki,[18] Gan Kolski, Louis Lozowick, Jan Matulka, Morris Pass, Anton Refregier, Louis Leon Ribak, Otto Soglow, and Art Young.[19]

In 1930, Shemitz worked briefly for the Soviet-controlled Amtorg Trading Corporation, AMTORG, a job found for her by Hutchin's partner Anna Rochester.[20][21]

In 1931, she contributed a cartoon to the New Masses magazine.[22] In 1932, when her husband's name appeared as an editor, the names of Esther Shemitz and Jacob Burck appeared as (art) contributors for the New Masses alongside longer-term contributors like Louis Lozowick, Hugo Gellert, William Gropper, William Siegel, and Joseph Vogel.[23]

Underground

Shemitz cut short her own art career when her husband entered the Soviet underground in mid-1932. Thus, unlike most of her circle, who contributed to publications such as the Daily Worker newspaper and New Masses magazine, she did not become one of the New Deal's Federal Art Project artists during the latter part of the Great Depression and into World War II (1935–43).

Reuben Shemitz (Dec 1948), Shemitz's older brother

When Chambers defected from the underground, Grace Hutchins delivered a death threat against him, through her brother, attorney Reuben Shemitz. Later, grand jury investigation in December 1948, Reuben Shemitz told the press:

(Hutchins) said she wanted to see him on a 'matter of life and death'... She assured me that no harm would come to my sister or her children if Whit would get in touch with someone known to Whit as Steve (J. Peters).[24]

In his 1952 memoir, Chambers detailed:

There strode into my brother-in-law's office one morning a rather striking-looking white-haired woman, about fifty years old. She told the receptionist that Miss Grace Hutchins wished to see Mr. Shemitz...
In his private office, she came to the point at once: "If you will agree to turn Chambers over to us," she said, "the party will guarantee the safety of your sister and the children." My startled brother-in-law, who, like most Americans, was completely unaware of what Communism is really like (we had never discussed the subject), tried to explain that he did not know even the whereabouts of his sister, her husband or their children... "If he does not show up by (such and such a day)," she said briskly, "he will be killed." With that she left...
Terrified by the visit and unable to warn us, he was frantic. He rushed to the only two people he could think of who might know where we were... Neither of them could help him.[25]

She managed the family's Pipe Creek Farm during its many active years from the late 1930s until the mid-1950s.

Hiss Case

Foley Square in 2014 in New York City, site of grand jury and trials in the Hiss Case.

During deposition for the slander suit of Alger Hiss against Chambers in 1948, the Hiss legal team's rough treatment of Shemitz was the final factor in leading Chambers to disclose the existence of his "life preserver," which contained the "Baltimore Documents" and the "Pumpkin Papers." During the Hiss Case and trials, Shemitz corroborated and often augmented much of her husband's testimony. (She further explained, "I am now trying to remember things I had shut out of my mind, I though completely."[26])

In December 1948, with indictments in the Hiss Case pending, Shemitz struck an elderly female pedestrian with her car; the woman soon died. The accident made front pages:

Brooklyn Eagle
Sunday, December 19, 1948
HELD IN AUTO DEATH
Mrs. Whittaker Chambers, wife of the self-con-fessed former Communist spy, leaves the Baltimore police station after her arraignment in connection with the death of an aged woman struck by her car as she was going to the railroad station to pick up her husband after he testified before the Federal grand jury in Manhattan. Mrs. Chambers is the former Esther Shemitz of Brooklyn.[27]

Soon after, the case was dropped, as the victim had repeatedly attempted suicide by jumping in front of oncoming cars.

Aftermath

Shemitz was subject to rumors from Hiss supporters, particularly one in which not only were she and Lumpkin lesbian lovers but they were also involved in a four-way menage with their allegedly gay husbands – most recently put forward in biography of lesbians Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins.[21] In fact, Hutchins was the source of many such rumors: another she spread to the Hiss defense team during the Hiss trials was that Shemitz had told Hutchins that Chambers had spent time in the Westchester Division of the Bloomingdale Hospital for Mental Diseases, a claim she later withdrew.[20] (Robert Cantwell, a close friend of Chambers, had received treatment there in the 1940s; "Robert Cantwell" was an alias Chambers had used in the Soviet underground.[28]) A.B. Magil (a long-time Daily Worker writer and editor and CPUSA member) told Elinor Ferry (a Hiss supporter) that Chambers' wife and her roommate Grace Lumpkin appeared to be lesbians. Esther was masculine in appearance and in her voice. Grace was the softer, more feminine type."[29][30] The overall experience of the Hiss Case led Shemitz to avoid all press and rarely if ever speak to researchers.

Personal life and death

Whittaker Chambers (c. 1948), Shemitz's husband

Shemitz's older brother was attorney Reuben Shemitz. A nephew was Nathan Levine; another was Sylvan Shemitz.

In 1926, Whittaker Chambers first saw Shemitz at the Passaic Textile Strike, which he described at length in his 1952 memoir.[4][13][20]

In 1930, Chambers and friend Mike Intrator began to court Shemitz and Lumpkin; both couples married in 1931. Shemitz's marriage was witnessed by Grace Hutchins and her life partner Anna Rochester. Shemitz and Chambers had a daughter in 1933 and a son in 1936.[4][13][20]

Once Chambers defected, husband and wife lived at the Pipe Creek Farm, near Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland, for the rest of their lives.[2][20]

Shemitz made her first and only trip abroad, to Europe, with Chambers in the summer of 1959, during which they met Arthur Koestler and Margarete Buber-Neumann among others.[3][20]

When Chambers died of his seventh heart attack on July 9, 1961, Shemitz collapsed and was rushed to the nearest hospital in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.[3] On August 16, 1986, she died age 86 at her home.[1][2]

Works

Paintings

All of Shemitz’s paintings are held privately by her family or friends.

Books, articles

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Widow of Chambers Dies". New York Times. 20 August 1986. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "Esther Shemitz Chambers; Widow of Man Who Played Key Role in Alger Hiss Case". Los Angeles Times. 23 August 1986. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 "Chambers Is Dead; Hiss Case Witness". New York Times. 12 July 1961. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 "Historical Notes: Death of a Witness". TIME. 21 July 1961. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  5. ↑ "Clara Database of Women Artists: Esther Shemitz Chambers". National Museum of Women in the Arts. 23 August 1986. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  6. ↑ "The New Haven Jewish Cemetery Databse". New Haven Torah Center. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  7. ↑ Herman, Barry E.; Hirsch, Werner S. (1988). Jews in New Haven, Volume 5. Jewish Historical Society of New Haven. p. 126. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  8. ↑ Chambers, Whittaker (1964). Cold Friday. New York: Random House. pp. 281–284. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  9. ↑ "Tenth Full-Time Class of Rand School Will be Graduated Tomorrow Night" (PDF). The New York Call. 7 May 1920. p. 8. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  10. ↑ Meier, Andrew (August 11, 2008). The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service. W. W. Norton. pp. 224–267, 289–300. ISBN 978-0-393-06097-3.
  11. ↑ Hook, Sidney (1995). Edward S. Shapiro, ed. Letters of Sidney Hook: Democracy, Communism, and the Cold War. M.E. Sharpe. p. 15.
  12. ↑ Phelps, Christopher (2005). Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist. University of Michigan Press. pp. 33–34, 128.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Lumpkin, Grace (1932). To Make My Bread. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. p. 384. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  14. ↑ "Masthread". New Masses. June 1926. p. 3. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  15. ↑ "Masthread". New Masses. July 1926. p. 3. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  16. ↑ "Masthread". New Masses. August 1926. p. 3. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  17. ↑ Lincove, David A. (2004). "Radical Publishing to 'Reach the Million Masses': Alexander L. Trachtenberg and International Publishers, 1906–1966". Left History, vol. 10, no. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  18. ↑ Eitaro Ishigaki, from the Federal Art Project, Photographic Division collection - Image Gallery | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
  19. ↑ Hemingway, Andrew (2002). Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956. Yale University Press. pp. 47–48, 63, 67. ISBN 0-300-09220-2. JSTOR 1504057.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Weinstein, Allen (1978). Perjury: The Hiss Chambers Case. New York: Random House. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  21. 1 2 Allen, Julia M. (2013). Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins. SUNY Press. pp. 151 (AMTORG), 152 (lesbianism). Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  22. ↑ Shemitz, Esther (May 1931). "Alookin' f'r a Home" (PDF). New Masses. p. 11. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  23. ↑ "Masthead" (PDF). New Masses. June 1932. p. 3. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  24. ↑ "Boro Lawyer Tells of Part He Played in Threat to Chambers" (PDF). Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Eagle. 16 December 1948. p. 1. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  25. ↑ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. pp. 48–50. LCCN 52005149. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  26. ↑ Berresford, John W. (1 June 2008). "'The Grand Jury in the Hiss-Chambers Case". American Communist History. 7 (1): 13 (fn75). doi:10.1080/14743890802121878. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  27. ↑ "Held in Auto Death" (PDF). Brooklyn Eagle. 19 December 1948. p. 1. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  28. ↑ Craig, R. Bruce (2001). "The Hiss-Chambers Controversy: Records of the House Un-American Activities Committee". The Alger Hiss Story: A Search for Truth. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  29. ↑ Zeligs, Meyer A. (1967). Friendship and fratricide; an analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. New York: Viking. p. 105. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  30. ↑ Allen, Julia M. (2013). Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins. SUNY Press. p. 152. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  31. ↑ Johnson, Charles Spurgeon (1969). Opportunity. National Urban League. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  32. ↑ Hutchins, Grace (1929). Labor and Silk. New York: International Publishers. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  33. ↑ Chambers, Whittaker (1964). Cold Friday. New York: Random House. Retrieved 5 January 2017.

External sources

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