Annette Rubinstein
{{Short description|American Marxist educator, literary critic, and activist}}
Annette Teta Rubinstein (April 12, 1910 – June 20, 2007) was an American Marxist educator, literary critic, and activist.
Biography
Rubinstein was born on April 12, 1910, on the Lower East Side, in New York City.{{Cite web |last=Meyer |first=Gerald |date=March 3, 2017 |title=Annette T. Rubinstein and Progressive Secular Jewishness |url=https://jewishcurrents.org/annette-t-rubinstein-and-progressive-secular-jewishness |access-date=December 1, 2023 |website=Jewish Currents}} Both of her parents, Abraham and Jean Rubinstein, were teachers.{{Cite book |title=Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: Another Side of the Story |year=2009 |isbn=9780230620742 |editor-last=Lang |editor-first=Clarence |pages=61|publisher=Springer }} Rubinstein earned her PhD from Columbia University and then became the principal of the Robert Louis Stevenson High School.{{Cite book |last=Castledine |first=Jacqueline |title=Cold War Progressives: Women's Interracial Organizing for Peace and Freedom |date=November 2012 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=9780252094439 |pages=115}} Rubinstein joined the Communist Party in the 1930s and remained a secret member of the Party until 1952.{{Cite book |last=Wald |first=Alan M. |title=American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780807835869 |pages=81}} She was also active in the American Labor Party, and served as its state vice-chairman.{{Cite book |last=Hoban |first=Phoebe |title=Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781429956765 |pages=423}} She met American Labor Party politician Vito Marcantonio in 1934 and later worked for him as an adviser.{{Cite book |last=Bell |first=Christopher |title=East Harlem Remembered: Oral Histories of Community and Diversity |publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers |year=2013 |isbn=9780786468089 |pages=63}} In 1958, she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Independent-Socialist ticket.{{Cite book |last=Buhle |first=Paul |title=Encyclopedia of the American Left |publisher=Garland Pub. |year=1990 |isbn=9781558621213 |pages=502}}
As a writer and literary critic, Rubinstein was the author of the two-volume book The Great Tradition in English Literature: From Shakespeare to Shaw, which focused "from a Marxist perspective on the relationship of political and social movements to 'major literary works'.{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Robert |title=Reception History, Tradition and Biblical Interpretation: Gadamer and Jauss in Current Practice |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=9780567655424 |pages=183}} Rubinstein taught in East Germany between 1960 and 1962 and served as the vice-chairman of the German-American Friendship Society, which advocated for American recognition of the German Democratic Republic.{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Christina Looper |title=In a Generous Spirit: A First-person Biography of Myra Page |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=1996 |isbn=9780252065439 |pages=254}}
Her papers are held in the Tamiment Library at New York University.{{Cite web |title=Annette T. Rubinstein Papers: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids |url=https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_167/ |access-date=2023-12-01 |website=findingaids.library.nyu.edu |language=en-us}}
References
{{reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubinstein, Annette}}
Category:People from the Lower East Side
Category:20th-century American educators
Category:American literary critics
Category:American Marxist writers
Category:20th-century American women writers