1. Grace Hutchins was an American labor reformer and researcher, journalist, political activist and communist.
24 Facts About Grace Hutchins
1. 2.
Grace Hutchins spent many years of her life writing about labor and economics, in addition to being a lifelong dedicated member of the Communist Party, along with Anna Rochester, a Marxist economist and historian and her companion of 45 years.
3.
Together they were known for promoting radical Christian pacifism in the United States, although Hutchins was regularly involved in strikes, demonstrations and labor disputes.
4.
Grace Hutchins was born in an upper-class family in Boston in 1885, the third daughter of five children to Susan and Edward Hutchins.
5.
Grace Hutchins's father was an attorney who helped found the Legal Aid Society, while her mother was involved in various hospitals in the city; they were both actively involved in the Episcopal Trinity Church.
6.
Grace Hutchins was privately educated, and accompanied her parents on a world tour from 1898 to 1899.
7.
Grace Hutchins then attended the women's college at Bryn Mawr, which was relatively new at the time.
8.
Grace Hutchins graduated in 1907, and remained in touch with her classmates later in life.
9.
Grace Hutchins became a secretary and public speaker for the organization.
10.
Grace Hutchins served as a press secretary from 1924 to 1926, during which time she served as a business executive while actively contributing to the monthly magazine.
11.
The Companions' reading lists for their annual retreats revolved around the works of Christian socialists such as Walter Rauschenbusch and Edward Carpenter, and Grace Hutchins read more traditional writers such Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
12.
Grace Hutchins's career was focused upon the health and welfare of working class women and children.
13.
In contrast to the poverty and poor conditions she had witnessed in India, Grace Hutchins was impressed by their collective attempts under communism to overcome the deprivations the country faced.
14.
From 1940 to 1956, Grace Hutchins was a shareholder in the communist Daily Worker newspaper.
15.
Grace Hutchins was a trustee of the Bail Bond fund of the Civil Rights Congress, which supported people who were defending themselves in the Smith Act trials, She personally posted the $10,000 bail for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn after the latter's 1951 indictment.
16.
In 1948, during the Alger Hiss espionage trial, Grace Hutchins was accused by Whittaker Chambers of threatening death from the Party after he defected.
17.
In 1951, Grace Hutchins testified before a House Un-American Activities subcommittee due to her contributions to Communist publications, like The New Masses and Daily Worker, and her political campaigns for the Community party.
18.
Grace Hutchins is known to have had a close personal relationship with Anna Rochester, and their relationship lasted forty years, living in New York's Greenwich Village.
19.
Grace Hutchins has been described as "exud[ing] warmth, building families among those near her, shaping her feminism around women's traditional and potential strengths and insisting on women's economic independence as the key to liberation".
20.
Grace Hutchins denied the offence, and condemned the accusations in various interviews and publications.
21.
Grace Hutchins's father did not approve of her political activities, and he was disappointed about her 1927 arrest.
22.
Anna Rochester died age 86 on May 11,1966, of pneumonia; Grace Hutchins died age 83 on July 15,1969, at their home after extended illness.
23.
Grace Hutchins's writings focus primarily on labor conditions for women and children.
24.
Grace Hutchins co-edited several reference series for the group, as well as editing the group's own magazine, Railroad Notes between 1937 and 1962.