Schleuning, Neala

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Coiner, Constance. Better Red: The Writing and Resistance of Tillie Olson and Meridel Le Sueur. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. "Le Sueur, Meridel." Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2000. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2001. Le Sueur, Meridel. Ripening, Selected works, 1927-1980. Introduction, Elaine Hedges. Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1982. Schleuning, Neala. “Meridel Le Sueur: Toward a New Regionalism.” Books at Iowa. Iowa City: University of Iowa Libraries 33 (November 1980): 22-41.

The American writer Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996) was the author of short stories, poems, a novel, articles, essays, and reportage pieces. The rise of radicalism in the 1960s and the Women's movement in the 1970s brought revitalized attention to Le Sueur's work, and she continued producing new writing and publishing into her nineties. Much of Le Sueur's work remains in print. Le Sueur was a well-known and respected writer of the political left who published in magazines and journals such as American Mercury, Anvil, Dial, New Masses, New Republic, Scribner's, Story, and Yale Review .

Le Sueur was born on February 22, 1900, in Murray, Iowa; she died November 14, 1996, in Hudson, Wisconsin. She was raised in a climate of social activism: her mother, a college instructor, and her step-father, Arthur Le Sueur, a lawyer and founder of the Industrial Workers of the World, worked to support the socialist ideals that developed in the American Midwest at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Crusaders, Le Sueur's biography of her parents). The Le Sueur family associated with figures such as Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, Lincoln Steffens, and Emma Goldman; and Meridel Le Sueur's writing inherited the spirit of the Socialist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. The stories that Le Sueur published at this time--some of which were anthologized in O. Henry Prize Stories and O'Brien Best Stories --reflect her commitment to Midwestern populist values and feminism.

Le Sueur published consistently until 1947 when she was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In spite of the blacklist, Alfred Knopf continued to publish Le Sueur's children's books, but sales were not enough to provide her with an income and she turned to teaching as one means of supporting herself. Le Sueur described the post-war years as her "dark time" (Coiner 82-3).

The American educator and writer Neala Schleuning, also known as Neala Janis Schleuning Yount, received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1978 with a dissertation on the life and work of Meridel Le Sueur. Schleuning's association with Le Sueur began in 1973 and continued while Schleuning wrote her dissertation and worked with the Twin Cities Women's Film Collective on the film My People Are My Home (1976).

The film is narrated by Le Sueur from a script of her own poetry and prose, and also includes some brief interviews. In the course of Schleuning's research for both the Film Collective project and her dissertation, she worked directly with Le Sueur, drawing on Le Sueur's journals and other archival materials. Schleuning remained in contact with Le Sueur until the latter's death in 1996.

Schleuning taught American history, Women's Studies, and American Studies, and was involved in higher education administration. She was director of the women's center at Mankato State University (now known as Minnesota State University, Mankato), and assistant director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. A Fulbright Scholar, she is the author of several books, including America: Song We Sang Without Knowing (1983), Idle Hands and Empty Hearts: Work and Freedom in the United States (1990), Women, Community, and the Hormel Strike of 1985-86 (1994), and To Have and to Hold: the Meaning of Ownership in the United States (1997).

From the guide to the Neala Schleuning - Meridel Le Sueur collection, 1930-2004, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)

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