Jacqueline Steiner (September 11, 1924 – January 25, 2019) was an American

folk singer Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

and social

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

. Steiner is known for having written the lyrics to the song " M.T.A.", about a man stuck on the

Boston subway The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates rapid transit (heavy rail), light rail, and bus rapid transit services in the Boston metropolitan area, collectively referred to as the rapid transit, subway, or the T system. The co ...

because he could not pay the

exit fare An exit fare is a method of collecting ridership fees, or fares, from a transportation system, where the fee (or part of the fee) is collected from passengers upon reaching their destination. Examples Exit fares were used on the subway lines of ...

. "M.T.A." was co-written with

Bess Lomax Hawes Bess Lomax Hawes (January 21, 1921 – November 27, 2009) was an American folk musician, folklorist, and researcher. She was the daughter of John Avery Lomax and Bess Bauman-Brown Lomax, and the sister of Alan Lomax and John Lomax Jr. Early l ...

as part of a Boston political campaign in 1949 and later altered slightly by the popular folk group the

Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...

, becoming one of their hits in 1959.

Life and career

Steiner was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and grew up in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

. She was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. She graduated from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

and attended graduate courses at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

, but left before earning her degree. During her time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she began singing with other musicians who gathered at Bess Lomax Hawes' house, including Sam and Arnold Berman, brothers from Roxbury. A conversation between the Berman brothers inspired Hawes and Steiner to create "M.T.A." Steiner married Arnold Berman and moved back to New York while he studied physics at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

(they divorced in 1954). She was active in the folk scene in the 1950s and 60s, singing (as Jackie Berman) with

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...

and others on ''Hootenanny Tonight!'' (recorded in 1954 and released by

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

in 1959). Following her divorce from Berman, Steiner married publisher Myron Sharpe. They honeymooned in the Soviet Union, where she performed in concert. Novelist Matthew Sharpe is their son; they also have a daughter, Susanna. She continued to work as an editor for Myron's publishing house even after their divorce. As Jacqueline Sharpe, she released an album of antiwar songs in 1966 entitled ''No More War''. Steiner was a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, as she demonstrated in 1991 with her album ''Far Afield: Songs of Three Continents''. Steiner joined the

Norwalk, Connecticut , image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg , mapsize = 230px , map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...

branch of the

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

civil rights advocacy group the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP) in 1991, serving as the chapter's secretary for several years and receiving the Roy Wilkins Leadership Award for service from the state NAACP in 2010. Steiner died of pneumonia on January 25, 2019 at the age of 94 in Norwalk, Connecticut, where she had been living since 1980.

Life and career

References

Further reading