![]() ![]() By the time she was 17, she had enough for a small collection which her doting father had published at his own expense in 1866, for the benefit of family members. Lazarus began writing poetry while still a child. Until we are all free, we are none of us free. He supervised her study of languages, literature, and the classics and encouraged her to write. ![]() By the time she was 13, her father Moses saw in her a unique talent and took personal charge of her education. Considered too fragile and sickly for a school environment, Emma studied with tutors at home. Theirs was the rich society of uptown Manhattan, a refined and exclusive world of private education, elegant homes, fine china, and literary salons.Įmma was the fifth of seven children in the Lazarus household-eldest son Frank had been followed by six daughters. Descendants of Simon Nathan married into the equally distinguished Seixus, Cordozo, and Lazarus families of Philadelphia and New York. The Nathan family began in America with Simon Nathan, an English Jew of Sephardic descent who came to the New World in 1773 and actively supported the American Revolution. Her mother Esther Nathan Lazarus also came from an old, distinguished line. He traced his ancestry back to the first 23 Jews to settle in New York in 1654, refugees from an earlier colony in Recife, Brazil. Her father Moses Lazarus was a prosperous Sephardic (Spanish) Jewish sugar refiner. But the young Emma lived a sheltered life, far from the politics raging around her. Across the ocean, a revolution was occurring in Germany which sent a wave of new immigrants to America, and gold had been discovered in California. Abolitionists were debating states' rights advocates, and North and South were facing off for a major conflict. It was a time of political and social turmoil in the United States. Yet, more than a century after her death, her name immediately brings a spark of recognition even to those who know little about the history of American women, or Jewish women, or that one woman with whom Lazarus' name is inextricably linked: the Statue of Liberty.Įmma was born on July 22, 1849, almost exactly one year after the first Woman's Rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York. She never openly rebelled against her parents, did not travel until she was over 30 years old, never married or had children, never stood on a speaker's podium. Poems and Translations (published privately, 1866, published commercially, 1867) Admetus and Other Poems (1871) Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life (1874) The Spagnoletto (1876) assorted translations of medieval Spanish-Jewish poets (1879) Poems and Ballads of Heine (1882) Songs of a Semite (1882) An Epistle to the Hebrews (1882–83) "The New Colossus" (1883) By the Waters of Babylon (1887).Įmma Lazarus lived a short and quiet life. Part of a prosperous and distinguished family remained in her parents' home throughout her life began writing in her teens published first poetry collection (1866) met Ralph Waldo Emerson, an early mentor (1868) first heard about problems of Russian-Jewish immigrants (1881–82) wrote articles countering anti-Semitic attacks (1882) wrote "The New Colossus" (1883) traveled to Europe (1884, 1885–86) "The New Colossus" inscribed on the Statue of Liberty (1903). Born on July 22, 1849, in New York City died of Hodgkin's disease on November 19, 1887, in New York City daughter of Moses Lazarus (a sugar refiner and businessman) and Esther Nathan Lazarus educated privately, at home never married no children. American-Jewish poet, writer and scholar who committed herself to helping Russian-Jewish immigrants, and whose poem "The New Colossus," welcoming immigrants, is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. ![]()
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