1. Miriam Davenport or Miriam Davenport Ebel was an American painter and sculptor, She worked with Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee in 1940 helping European Jewish and intellectuals refugees escape from German-occupied France during World War II.
Miriam Davenport was born on June 6,1915, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Miriam Davenport's parents were steam boat captain Howard Ernest Davenport and Florence L Davenport.
Miriam Davenport's mother had died while Davenport was attending Smith College, and the parents had debts.
Miriam Davenport graduated in 1937 and studied at New York University's Graduate Institute of Fine Arts for one year.
In Toulouse, Miriam Davenport met poet Walter Mehring and other German and European refugees who were seeking to escape France to go to the United States.
Miriam Davenport sought out artists and other refugees, interviewed them, and determined who was most in need of help.
Miriam Davenport invited her clients Victor Serge and Andre Breton and their families to move into the immense house.
Miriam Davenport went to Ljubljana in October 1940 to get him and bring him to Marseille.
On her return to the United States, Miriam Davenport became involved with the American Council of Learned Societies Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas.
Miriam Davenport helped prepare maps and documentation for use by the Allied Forces to help avoid bombing culturally important sites as well as to enable military units on the ground to secure these sites to prevent pillaging.
Miriam Davenport had worked with the American Council of Learned Societies during the war.
Miriam Davenport worked at Princeton University where she oversaw the office of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists for Albert Einstein.
Miriam Davenport met archaeologist Charles Ebel who was an ancient history scholar.
Miriam Davenport worked as an art instructor and taught French language courses at the university.
Miriam Davenport did a thesis on Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon, an 18th-century writer.
Varian Fry had died in 1967, but Miriam Davenport visited Marseille and was reunited with Gold.