28 Facts About Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes.

Emma Lazarus is remembered for writing the sonnet "The New Colossus", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty, in 1883.

Emma Lazarus was the author of Poems and Translations ; Admetus, and other Poems ; Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life ; Poems and Ballads of Heine ; Poems, 2 Vols.

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City, July 22,1849, into a large Sephardic Jewish family.

Emma Lazarus was the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus, a wealthy Jewish merchant and sugar refiner, and Esther Nathan.

One of her great-grandfathers on the Emma Lazarus side was from Germany; the rest of her Emma Lazarus and Nathan ancestors were originally from Portugal and they were resident in New York long before the American Revolution, they were among the original twenty-three Portuguese Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam after they had fled from their settlement in Recife, Brazil in an attempt to flee from the Inquisition.

Emma Lazarus's great-great-grandmother on her mother's side, Grace Seixas Nathan was born on in Stratford in 1752 and was a poet.

Emma Lazarus's siblings included sisters Josephine, Sarah, Mary, Agnes and Annie, and a brother, Frank.

Emma Lazarus was attracted in youth to poetry, writing her first lyrics when eleven years old.

The first stimulus for Emma Lazarus's writing was offered by the American Civil War.

Emma Lazarus wrote The Crowing of the Red Cock, and the sixteen-part cycle poem "Epochs".

Emma Lazarus wrote a novel and two plays in five acts, The Spagnoletto, a tragic verse drama about the titular figure and The Dance to Death, a dramatization of a German short story about the burning of Jews in Nordhausen during the Black Death.

Emma Lazarus traveled twice to Europe, first in 1883 and again from 1885 to 1887.

Emma Lazarus met with Henry James, Robert Browning and Thomas Huxley during her European travels.

Emma Lazarus was a friend and admirer of the American political economist Henry George.

Emma Lazarus believed deeply in Georgist economic reforms and became active in the "single tax" movement for land value tax.

Emma Lazarus published a poem in the New York Times named after George's book, Progress and Poverty.

Emma Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

Emma Lazarus began to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish immigrants.

Emma Lazarus helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to assist destitute Jewish immigrants to become self-supporting.

Emma Lazarus volunteered in the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society employment bureau; she eventually became a strong critic of the organization.

Emma Lazarus returned to New York City seriously ill after she completed her second trip to Europe, and she died two months later, on November 19,1887, most likely from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Emma Lazarus was buried in Beth Olam Cemetery in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn.

Emma Lazarus's papers are kept by the American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, and her letters are collected at Columbia University.

Emma Lazarus was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March 2008, and her home on West 10th Street was included on a map of Women's Rights Historic Sites.

Emma Lazarus contributed toward shaping the self-image of the United States as well as how the country understands the needs of those who emigrate to the United States.

Emma Lazarus's themes produced sensitivity and enduring lessons regarding immigrants and their need for dignity.

Emma Lazarus rose to the defense of her ethnic compatriots in powerful articles, as contributions to The Century.