Storm Against the Wall - Cook, Fannie

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Résumé :

Storm Against the Wall is the intergenerational story of an immigrant German-Jewish family in St. Louis. While trying to establish a decent life in the American Midwest of the early twentieth century, Hans Kleinman confronts various forms of racism-discrimination against Blacks and antisemitism against himself and his family-resulting in a web of social conflicts from which there is no escape for him or his children.

Against the mounting despair of America's failure as an alchemist, Fannie Cook's warm understanding story of an America-German-Jewish family stands out like a healthy thumb. Not that Miss Cook is considering the silver lining which complacence finds in every minority problem. . . . It is [the Kleinman family's] positive faith, their enduring appreciation of freedom from older tyranny, which gives this history its unexpected fillip of hope and vitality. - New York Times

About the Author:

Fannie Frank Cook (1893 - 1949) was a writer and social activist who worked for the advanced of Blacks, Jews, women, and the working class. Born to a German-Jewish immigrant family, she began to write as a child, and after completing her bachelor's at the University of Missouri, received a master's degree in English from Washington University, where she also taught. In addition to raising her two sons and teaching literature, Cook became active in local politics, including as Chairman of the Education Committee of the League of Women Voters in St. Louis. In 1930, she became chairman of the Race Relations Committee of city's Community Council, and eventually helped organize the Committee for the Rehabilitation of the Sharecroppers, which bought land for resettlement in what became known as Cropperville. Her first novel, The Hill Grows Steeper, was published in 1938. Before dying of a heart attack in 1949, she published five more novels-all of them portraying social ills with the goal of using literature to influence public opinion and to increase awareness of racial in justice in the United States.