Early Life and Career
Maggie Kuhn was born in Buffalo, New York. Her childhood was spent in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Memphis, Tennessee.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Kuhn taught at the YWCA, where she educated women about unionizing, women's issues, and social issues. She caused controversy by starting a human sexuality class in which she discussed such topics as the mechanics of sex, birth control, sexual pleasure, pregnancy, and the difficulties of remaining single in a culture where marriage is the norm. She encouraged women to really study their own lives and their world. She once wrote to companies for samples of their products and incited a discussion of the products, "truth in advertising," the profits made from cosmetics and drugs, the conditions under which they were made, and the role of women as "purchasing agents."
During World War II, she became program director for the YWCA-USO, which was a controversial career choice due to her opposition to the war. In spite of this, she continued to advocate a progressive stance on issues such as desegregation, urban housing, McCarthyism, the Cold War, and nuclear arms.
Read more about this topic: Maggie Kuhn
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one,—that my body might,—but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)