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Myra Page
Dorothy Markey (born Dorothy Page Gary, 1897–1993), known by the pen name Myra Page, was a 20th-century American communist writer, journalist, union activist, and teacher.
Page was born Dorothy Page Gary on October 1, 1897, in Newport News, Virginia. Her father's ancestors, the Garys, came from Wales to the Tidewater region in 1720. Her mother's ancestors, the Barhams, came to Jamestown, Virginia. Her father Benjamin Roscoe Gary was a doctor, her mother Willie Alberta Barham an artist, and her home "affluent", "middle-class and progressive". Her brother Barham was a good friend of future Virginia Governor Colgate Darden.
In 1918, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History from Westhampton College (now the University of Richmond).
After teaching school in Richmond, Virginia, Page started graduate work in 1919 at Columbia University. She studied anthropology under Franz Boas, Melvin Herskovitz, and Franklin Giddings. Both Boas and Herskovitz "challenged the prevailing theories about racial hierarchies." She took a class under John Dewey at Columbia's Teacher's College and attended courses given by theologians Harry Emerson Fosdick and Henry F. Ward at Union Theological Seminary. She later said of this period in her life, "it was like a whole world opening up." She also sat in on a short story writing course taught by Helen Hunter. In 1920, Page earned an MA degree; her thesis analyzed the effects of New York newspaper coverage on the Spanish–American War.
While still a graduate student, Page was active in the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), which at the time championed reform in race relations. Influenced by Social Gospel, she "developed an antiracist consciousness and chafed against the restrictions imposed upon her as a southern white woman." Upon completing her MA in 1920, she became a YWCA "industrial secretary" at a silk factory in Norfolk, Virginia, near her home town of Newport News. She organized education for women workers.
Giddings had introduced Page to the Rand School of Social Science, where she met Anna Louise Strong, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Scott Nearing. In 1921 she returned to New York from Norfolk, and studied further under Nearing at Rand. She was reading, for the first time, the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Against her family's wishes, she took a factory job in Philadelphia and became a union organizer for the (then pro-communist) Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (ACW). She chose Amalgamated for its progressivism and emphasis on education. She initially worked at a Wanamaker's department store. The union helped her get a job in a clothing sweatshop, where she participated in an ACW-led strike. She became a pants seamstress—good enough that the ACW sent her to New York City for training in making button holes. Next, she and others were sent to St. Louis, Missouri, to help unionize the city's biggest garment sweatshop, Curlee's. During a slump in 1923, she took a secretarial job and went home to Newport News for a few months. In the spring of 1924, she returned to the New York area and was hired as a schoolteacher of American history in Teaneck, New Jersey. There, "I joined the New York City Local of the American Federation of Teachers and quickly became one of its leaders."
In fall 1924, she got a teaching fellowship in the History Department of the University of Minnesota, chaired by F. Stuart Chapin. Pitirim Sorokin, former secretary to Alexander Kerensky and a Menshevik leader, was a professor there. She married fellow teacher John Markey, and together they joined the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union. They both encouraged garment workers to unionize in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis and St. Paul).
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Myra Page
Dorothy Markey (born Dorothy Page Gary, 1897–1993), known by the pen name Myra Page, was a 20th-century American communist writer, journalist, union activist, and teacher.
Page was born Dorothy Page Gary on October 1, 1897, in Newport News, Virginia. Her father's ancestors, the Garys, came from Wales to the Tidewater region in 1720. Her mother's ancestors, the Barhams, came to Jamestown, Virginia. Her father Benjamin Roscoe Gary was a doctor, her mother Willie Alberta Barham an artist, and her home "affluent", "middle-class and progressive". Her brother Barham was a good friend of future Virginia Governor Colgate Darden.
In 1918, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History from Westhampton College (now the University of Richmond).
After teaching school in Richmond, Virginia, Page started graduate work in 1919 at Columbia University. She studied anthropology under Franz Boas, Melvin Herskovitz, and Franklin Giddings. Both Boas and Herskovitz "challenged the prevailing theories about racial hierarchies." She took a class under John Dewey at Columbia's Teacher's College and attended courses given by theologians Harry Emerson Fosdick and Henry F. Ward at Union Theological Seminary. She later said of this period in her life, "it was like a whole world opening up." She also sat in on a short story writing course taught by Helen Hunter. In 1920, Page earned an MA degree; her thesis analyzed the effects of New York newspaper coverage on the Spanish–American War.
While still a graduate student, Page was active in the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), which at the time championed reform in race relations. Influenced by Social Gospel, she "developed an antiracist consciousness and chafed against the restrictions imposed upon her as a southern white woman." Upon completing her MA in 1920, she became a YWCA "industrial secretary" at a silk factory in Norfolk, Virginia, near her home town of Newport News. She organized education for women workers.
Giddings had introduced Page to the Rand School of Social Science, where she met Anna Louise Strong, Mary Heaton Vorse, and Scott Nearing. In 1921 she returned to New York from Norfolk, and studied further under Nearing at Rand. She was reading, for the first time, the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Against her family's wishes, she took a factory job in Philadelphia and became a union organizer for the (then pro-communist) Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (ACW). She chose Amalgamated for its progressivism and emphasis on education. She initially worked at a Wanamaker's department store. The union helped her get a job in a clothing sweatshop, where she participated in an ACW-led strike. She became a pants seamstress—good enough that the ACW sent her to New York City for training in making button holes. Next, she and others were sent to St. Louis, Missouri, to help unionize the city's biggest garment sweatshop, Curlee's. During a slump in 1923, she took a secretarial job and went home to Newport News for a few months. In the spring of 1924, she returned to the New York area and was hired as a schoolteacher of American history in Teaneck, New Jersey. There, "I joined the New York City Local of the American Federation of Teachers and quickly became one of its leaders."
In fall 1924, she got a teaching fellowship in the History Department of the University of Minnesota, chaired by F. Stuart Chapin. Pitirim Sorokin, former secretary to Alexander Kerensky and a Menshevik leader, was a professor there. She married fellow teacher John Markey, and together they joined the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union. They both encouraged garment workers to unionize in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis and St. Paul).