Dorothy Sterling (née Dannenberg; November 23, 1913 – December 1, 2008) was an American writer and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. After college, she worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and writer in New York for several years, including work for the

Federal Writers’ Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It ...

Biography

Sterling worked for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' from 1936 to 1949 and was then assistant bureau chief in Life’s news bureau from 1944 to 1949. Starting in the 1950s, she authored more than 30 books, mainly non-fiction historical works for children on the origins of the women's and anti-slavery movements,

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

, and nature, as well as mysteries.

Personal life

In 1937, she married Philip Sterling (died 1989), also a writer. Her daughter,

Anne Fausto-Sterling Anne Fausto-Sterling ( Sterling; born July 30, 1944) is an American sexologist who has written extensively on the biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, gender roles, and intersexuality. She is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emer ...

, is a noted

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

, the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, and is married to playwright

Paula Vogel Paula Vogel (born November 16, 1951) is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play ''How I Learned to Drive.'' A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Bro ...

. Her son, Peter Sterling, is a well-known neuroscientist and coiner of the term

allostasis Allostasis also known as “body budgeting” which Lisa Feldman Barret argues, proposes that efficient regulation requires preparing the body to satisfy the needs before they arise by budgeting those needed resources such as oxygen, insulin ...

. Sterling belonged to the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

in the 1940s. Even after leaving the party, she said

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

was her long-term goal. In early 1968, Sterling and her husband joined 448 writers and editors in placing a full-page ad in the ''New York Post'' declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. In 1984, she challenged President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

's decision to award the

Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

Whittaker Chambers Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), ...

, writing, "With all due respect to the dead, is this man, who has left behind him so many doubts about his own role, an appropriate recipient of the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award?"

Bibliography

Nature

:(1951) ''Sophie and Her Puppies'' :(1955) ''The story of mosses, ferns, and mushrooms'' :(1961) ''Ellen's Blue Jays'' :(1961) ''Caterpillars'' :(1966) ''Fall is Here!'' :(1967) ''The Outer Lands Natural History Guide to Cape Cod & Islands by Dorothy Sterling and Winifred Lubell''

Mysteries

:(1952) ''The Cub Scout Mystery'' :(1955) ''The Brownie Scout Mystery'' :(1958) ''The Silver Spoon Mystery'' by Dorothy Sterling :(1960) ''Secret of the Old Post-Box'' :(1971) ''Mystery of the Empty House (Org. Secret of the Old Post Box) by Dorothy Sterling and Jane Goldsborough''

Black history and civil rights

:(1953) ''United Nations, N. Y.'' :(1954) ''Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman'' :(1959) "Mary Jane" :(1963) ''Forever free: The story of the Emancipation Proclamation'' :(1964) ''Lucretia Mott'' :(1965) ''Lift Every Voice: The Lives of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary Church Terrell and James Weldon Johnson'' :(1969) ''Tear Down the Walls!: A History of the American Civil Rights Movement'' :(1978) ''Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls'' :(1984) ''We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century'' :(1994) ''The Trouble They Seen: Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans'' :(1994) ''Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelly and the Politics of Antislavery'' :(1996) ''The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany 1812-1885'' :(1998) ''Speak Out in Thunder Tones''

Autobiography

:(2005) ''Close to My Heart: An Autobiography''

Awards

* Inclusion in the 1960-1961 William Allen White Children's Book Award Masterlist of ''Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls'' * 1977 Carter G. Woodson Book Award winner for ''The Trouble They Seen: Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans''

References

External links

Guide to the Dorothy Sterling papers at the University of Oregon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sterling, Dorothy American writers of young adult literature American non-fiction children's writers Historians of African Americans Historians of the United States 20th-century American historians 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American autobiographers Women autobiographers American nature writers American mystery writers Women mystery writers American women children's writers American children's writers American women historians American women journalists American women novelists Jewish American historians Jewish American novelists Jewish women writers Jewish socialists Carter G. Woodson Book Award winners Members of the Communist Party USA American tax resisters 1913 births 2008 deaths