Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-07-09
| Went to the Soviet Arctic
BIZ Ruth Gruber. NelU York
Simon and SchuSter.

otFtCt ufto oSfthotcf.
Miss Gruber is the young woman
who, a few years ago, was celebrated
for having taken a doctors degree
in philosophy at the age of 20, She
accomplished this neat exploit at
the University of Cologne, just be-
fore Herr Hitler came to his glorious
authority over the German people
and commanded womankind to get
back to the kitchen in order that
the tired Siegfrieds of the Third
Reich should not lack recreation"
Miss Gruber, though safely in pos
session of her degree. promptly
realized that Germany was no place
for her. There, as she puts it, Bril-
liant and serious women students
who had been working for five or
six years to take their state exami-
nations as teachers or doctors, were
suddenly dropped from the univer-
stiles. Women were not wanted.
The intellectual life was harmful to
a woman's feeble brain SO she
returned to America. Her Jealous
young dream at that time was, as
she describes it, as follows:
II wanted to Undue industrial
America with the spirit of culture
I had found in pre-Hitler Germany.
I wanted to make America conscious
of Woman's Importance, to show how
much woman could contribute to
society and art if she were given
real chance" But alas for these
fine young hopes. Miss Gruber
came back to her native land, right
enough-and found it walloWing in
its most depressing depression. Her
efforts toward a cultural renaissance
were obliged to wait. For, as she
says, even with the publicity which
had attended her doctorship, she
could not find job.
After a time, however, she was
given the Yardley Foundation Eel
loWship, under the terms of which
she was to travel abroad for year
and study the problems presented
to women by "Fascism, Communism
and democracy" She made tour
of Europe, but of the first part of
this she writes little 1t was not
until she arrived in Russia that she
found real material for her book.
Then, through the help of the
explorer, Stefansson, she was given
permission to enter Russia's North
ern Siberian colonies, which, by
every account that has so far come
to this reviewer, must be by all odds
the most valuable and interesting
experiment undertaken by the
Soviet government. In this sup
posedly barren waste, Miss Gruber
discovered very paradise for wom-
en-. And the great part OF her book
is given over to describing the vital
and progressive nature of the new
Siberian project.
Russia is there making tire
mendous effort to conquer, by sci
ence and hard work, the climatic
disabilities which have up to now
kept Siberia a waste. The Soviet
government is pouring men-and
women-into this new territory and,
knowing the rigors which will face
the colonists, it is picking its peo-
pie with careful hand. Therefore,
in Siberia, Miss Gruber found what
she seems to consider the flower OF
the modern Russian state. And,
she reports, among these carefully
chosen ones, women are conspicu-
Gus for the merit of their work,
both high and low.
She saw women laborers, women
sailors and women in the skilled
trades. She saw women ship cap
tains and women meteorologists,
working for the government weather
bureau. And in Igarka, the new sea-
port, built ION the tundra" to open
up international trade in Siberian
lumber, she found the city director
to be woman. This dictatorship is
comparable to the Office OF mayor
in an American town and is by all
odds the most important job In the
place. Also in Igarka the director
of the state agricultural station, who
has it for her work to develop plants
which can come to maturity in the
short Siberian season, is woman.
And 10 on, through much Of Miss