Want fewer ads?

Anna Strunsky Walling (1877—1964) was an early 20th Century American author and proponent of socialism. She was vitally interested in social problems, literature, and the labor movement.

Anna Strunsky was born into a Jewish family in Babinots, Russia, March 21, 1877. Her family emigrated to New York City when she was nine years old. After several years in New York, in 1893 the family moved to San Francisco, where her family lived in the home of her brother, Dr. Max Strunsky. Anna joined the Socialist Labor Party as a teenager and remained a socialist the rest of her life. Anna studied at Stanford University (1896—1898). While at Stanford, Anna met the young writer Jack London, and they became close friends. She and London spent a great deal of time together discussing social and political issues. Anna and her sister Rose became leading members of the turn of the 20th century San Francisco intellectual scene, part of a radical group of young Californian writers and artists known as "The Crowd" that included Jack London, Jim Whitaker, George Sterling, and others. Anna's first book, The Kempton-Wace Letters, co-authored with Jack London, was published anonymously in 1903. After his death in 1916, she published a memoir of her relationship with Jack London.

In 1906 Anna and her sister Rose joined American socialist William English Walling in Russia as correspondents for his revolutionary news bureau. Anna and William married that year. They returned to the United States at the end of the year. Anna continued her writing, and her second book, Violette of Père Lachaise, was published in 1915. William and Anna separated during World War I, in part due to their disagreement over the United States' role in the conflict. They divorced in 1932.

Anna continued to write and advocate for socialism. She was an participant in Quaker social activity, and an active member of several liberal-left groups, including the War Resisters League, the League for Mutual Aid, the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment, the League for Industrial Democracy, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which she and her husband had helped found.

She died on February 25, 1964 in New York. She was survived by her four children.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anna Strunsky", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0