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Elinor Rice Hays

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Elinor Rice Hays
A young white woman with dark hair, wearing a dark top with a square neckline
Elinor Rice, from the 1923 yearbook of Barnard College
Born
Elinor Rice

October 12, 1901
New York City
DiedMarch 21, 1994
New York City
Occupation(s)Biographer, novelist
Spouse(s)George Novack (div. 1942); Paul R. Hays (married 1949)

Elinor S. Rice Hays (October 12, 1901 – March 21, 1994) was an American biographer and novelist.

Early life

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Elinor S. Rice was born in New York City,[1] the daughter of Jacques Bernard Rice and Rose Frankfeld Rice. All of her grandparents were from Bavaria. Her father was a silver merchant.[2] She graduated from Barnard College in 1923.[3]

Career

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During her first marriage, Rice ran a bookshop[4] and wrote three novels.[5] She was a member of the Communist League of America.[4] During the 1960s, she wrote two biographies, one of suffragist Lucy Stone,[6] and one of the Blackwell family, especially the physician sisters Elizabeth Blackwell and Emily Blackwell.[1][7]

Publications

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  • The Best Butter (1938, novel)[8][9]
  • Action in Havana (1940, novel)[10]
  • Mirror, Mirror (1946, novel)[11][12]
  • Morning Star: A Biography of Lucy Stone, 1818-1893 (1961, biography)[13]
  • Those Extraordinary Blackwells (1967, biography)[14]

Personal life

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Elinor Rice married twice. Her first husband was George Novack, a Marxist writer.[15][16] With Novack she was friends with writers Lionel and Diana Trilling.[4] The Novacks divorced in 1942. Her second husband was judge Paul R. Hays; they married in 1949; he died in 1980. She died in 1994, at age 92, in New York City.[1] Her research materials about the Blackwells, and some personal papers, are in the collection of Columbia University Libraries.[17]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Elinor Rice Hays, 92, Biographer of Women". The New York Times. 1994-03-23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  2. ^ "Bernard Rice's Silver". Steinmarks UK. Retrieved 2022-09-09.
  3. ^ Barnard College, Mortarboard (1923 yearbook): 178.
  4. ^ a b c Wald, Alan M. (1987). The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s. UNC Press Books. pp. 49, 102, 305. ISBN 978-0-8078-4169-3.
  5. ^ "Books on Parade: Real People". The Brooklyn Citizen. 1947-01-15. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-09-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ Beroth, Janet M. (1961-09-17). "Champion of Women". Hartford Courant. p. 125. Retrieved 2022-09-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Clack, C. Young (1967-10-29). "Those Blackwells Weren't Ordinary". Wichita Falls Times. p. 54. Retrieved 2022-09-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Hays, Elinor Rice (1938). The Best Butter. W. Morrow.
  9. ^ Evans, Oliver W. (1938-02-26). "Novelists Join Hunt for Utopia". Buffalo Evening News. p. 19. Retrieved 2022-09-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Rice, Elinor (1940). Action in Havana. Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
  11. ^ Rice, Elinor (1946). Mirror, Mirror. Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
  12. ^ Hutner, Gordon (2009). What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920-1960. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-8078-3227-1.
  13. ^ Hays, Elinor Rice (1961). Morning Star. Harcourt, Brace & World.
  14. ^ Hays, Elinor Rice (1967). Those Extraordinary Blackwells.
  15. ^ Wald, Alan M. (1976). "The Menorah Group Moves Left". Jewish Social Studies. 38 (3/4): 289–320. ISSN 0021-6704. JSTOR 4466940.
  16. ^ Novack, George. "George Edward Novack and Evelyn Reed papers, 1933-1992". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries.
  17. ^ "Elinor Rice Hays papers, 1867-196-". Columbia University Libraries. Retrieved 2022-09-09.
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