page_title: Fannie Hurst
section_title: Social activism
hierarchical_section_title: Fannie Hurst / Career / Social activism
context_page_description: Fannie Hurst was an American novelist and short-story writer whose works were highly popular during the post-World War I era. Her work combined sentimental, romantic themes with social issues of the day, such as women's rights and race relations. She was one of the most widely read female authors of the 20th century, and for a time in the 1920s she was one of the highest-paid American writers, along with Booth Tarkington. Hurst also actively supported a number of social causes, including feminism, African American equality, and New Deal programs.
  Although her novels, including Lummox, Back Street, and Imitation of Life, lost popularity over time and were mostly out-of-print as of the 2000s, they were bestsellers when first published and were translated into many languages. She also published over 300 short stories during her lifetime. Hurst is known for the film adaptations of her works, including Imitation of Life, starring Claudette Colbert, Louise Beavers, Fredi Washington, and Warren William; Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner; Humoresque, starring Joan Crawford; and Young at Heart, starring Frank Sinatra.
context_section_description: Throughout her life, Hurst was involved with many social activist groups supporting equal rights for women and African Americans, and occasionally assisting other people in need. In 1921, Hurst was among the first to join the Lucy Stone League, an organization that fought for women to preserve their maiden names. She was a member of the feminist intellectual group Heterodoxy in Greenwich Village, and was active in the Urban League. She volunteered as a regular visitor to inmates of a women's prison in Manhattan. During World War II she raised money to help Jewish refugees fleeing Europe, but in her earlier years was less supportive of other Jewish causes, saying in a 1925 interview that Zionism "segregates us, raises barriers or creates race prejudice". Her attitude changed in the 1950s, and in 1963 she received an honorary award from the Zionist women's organization Hadassah.
  During the 1930s and 1940s, Hurst was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and a frequent White House visitor. Hurst was named chair of the National Housing Commission in 1936–1937 and appointed to the National Advisory Committee to the Works Progress Administration in 1940. She was a delegate to the World Health Organization in 1952.
  In 1958, Hurst briefly hosted a television talk show out of New York called Showcase. Showcase was notable for presenting several of the earliest well-rounded discussions of homosexuality and was one of the few programs on which homosexual men spoke for themselves rather than being debated by a panel of "experts". Hurst was praised by early homophile group the Mattachine Society, which invited Hurst to deliver the keynote address at the Society's 1958 convention.
caption: Eleanor Roosevelt (left) with Hurst in 1962
exif: {}