Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2016 'The oP wer of Pearls': Memoir of a Russian Jewish Immigrant to the American South Leah Cannon Burnham Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Recommended Citation Burnham, Leah Cannon, "'The oP wer of Pearls': Memoir of a Russian Jewish Immigrant to the American South" (2016). All Theses. 2394. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2394 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “THE POWER OF PEARLS”: MEMOIR OF A RUSSIAN JEWISH IMMIGRANT TO THE AMERICAN SOUTH A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts History by Leah Cannon Burnham May 2016 Accepted by: Dr. Steven Marks, Committee Chair Dr. Alan Grubb Dr. Megan Shockley ABSTRACT Abe Wolfe Davidson was a Russian Jewish artist who immigrated to the South in 1922. He created public and private sculpture and encouraged artistic culture in the region. Davidson wrote an autobiography prior to passing away in 1981 and his daughters donated the unpublished memoir to the Clemson Special Collections. He provides an insider’s perspective to artistic culture in the region during the first half of the twentieth century. His memoir also describes life in the Jewish Pale of Settlement and the immigrant experience in the American South. This thesis analyzes the historical significance of Davidson and the value of his memoir. This study also links Davidson’s memoir to its historical context. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Steven Marks, who directed me toward this topic and guided me through the thesis process. I would like to thank my other committee members, Dr. Alan Grubb and Dr. Megan Shockley, for their time and advice. I am also grateful for the guidance and encouragement of Dr. Paul Anderson and Dr. Rod Andrew. I am indebted to Dorothy McCulloch and Punky Burwinkle for allowing me to edit and annotate their father’s memoir. Mrs. McCulloch graciously welcomed me into her home and showed me her private collection of artwork and documents. I would also like to thank the Clemson University Special Collections. I am especially grateful for the love and support of my husband, Craig. This work would not be possible without his daily encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE………………………………………………………………………………i ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………...iii A NOTE ON EDITING AND ANNOTATIONS…………………………………………1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...2 DAVIDSON’S PREFACE………………………………………………………………32 PART I: THE MEMORIES OF DAVIDSON’S ANCESTORS………………………..35 PART II: DAVIDSONS MEMORIES OF RUSSIA…………………………………...144 PART III: IMMIGRATION…………………………………………………………....272 PART IV: LIFE IN AMERICA………………………………………………………...305 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………………..490 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………491 iv A NOTE ON EDITING AND ANNOTATIONS I chose to edit the most egregious grammatical errors in order to provide consistency and also to improve readability. Davidson is responsible for the words within parentheses, while I provided definitions and additional information within brackets. I used what has been processed by the Clemson Special Collections as Version D of the memoir, but inserted two pages from Version C to replace two pages that were missing from Version D. I also chose to separate the memoir into four parts to improve organization. Because the memoir’s content is historically rich, I chose to annotate it in order to link Davidson’s memoir to its historical context. Memoirs can be better understood when they are interpreted in connection with historical events and information. I hope that the annotations make the memoir more accessible to readers. 1 INTRODUCTION Abe Wolfe Davidson was a Russian Jewish immigrant whose artistic career flourished in the South during the twentieth century. Davidson created public sculpture for South Carolina and Georgia legislatures and also for universities, including Clemson University, Furman University, Mercer University, and the Citadel. He also designed the sesquicentennial half-dollar of Columbia, SC in 1936.1 He was the first vice-president of the Fine Arts League, which he helped to create in 1935, as well as the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project gallery director in Greenville, South Carolina, from 1937-1938.2 This gallery would later become the Greenville Art Museum. He was the director of the art program at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia for almost twenty years, retiring in 1966. Prior to his death, Davidson was in the process of sculpting a statue of SC Senator Strom Thurmond.3 Davidson not only had a remarkable career in art, he also had a remarkable life. Davidson was born in 1903 in Vitebsk, then in the Russian Empire, now part of Belarus. As a Jew, Davidson and his family faced discrimination in Russia. He later experienced the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Civil War that followed. Demonstrating artistic talent at an early age, Davidson was offered the opportunity to study art at the Vitebsk Government Art School, headed by Marc Chagall and Kazimir 1 A. Wolfe Davidson, Biographical Data A. Wolfe Davidson, Abram Wolfe Davidson Papers, Clemson University Libraries Special Collections. 2 Lila Easley Earle and Evelyn Pack Daniel, “Art: Architecture and Painting,” in The Arts in2 Lila Greenville, Easley Earle 1800 and-1960 Evelyn, ed. Alfred Pack Daniel,S. Reid “Art:(Greenville, Architecture SC: Furman and Painting,” University, in The 1960), Arts in Greenville, 1800-1960, ed. Alfred S. Reid (Greenville, SC: Furman University, 1960), 70. 3 “Davidson, artist, succumbs,” The Greenville News, October 28, 1981. 2 Malevich, during the Russian Civil War. In 1922 at the age of 19, Davidson and his mother emigrated to Greenville, South Carolina, to rejoin immediate family. In the American South, Davidson witnessed Jim Crow and participated in the home-front war effort during World War II. Davidson passed away in 1981 at the age of 78, leaving behind numerous pieces of public and private art and his unpublished memoir.4 Toward the end of his life, Davidson recorded his story for both his descendants and posterity. Davidson realized the historical significance of the events he witnessed and also his own historical agency in transforming artistic culture in South Carolina. He transcribed his family story in an effort to preserve this information, fearing that his story would be forgotten if left unwritten. Leigh Gilmore writes, “An autobiography is a monument to the idea of personhood, to the notion that one could leave behind a memorial to oneself (just in case no one else ever gets around to it) and that the memorial would perform the work of permanence that the person never can.”5 Davidson’s story exhibits characteristics of both a memoir and autobiography, so it does not fall into one category. Lee Shai Weissbach claims that “the line between the two genres of memoir and autobiography is a vague one, if it exists at all.”6 Davidson’s manuscript can be considered both, as it is both a collection of his memories of events and also a carefully written life story. 4 “Davidson, artist, succumbs,” Greenville News, October 28, 1981. 5 Leigh Gilmore, The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 12-13. 6 Lee Shai Weissbach, “Introduction,” In A Jewish Life on Three Continents: The Memoir of Menachem Mendel Frieden, trans. and ed. Lee Shai Weissbach (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), xv. 3 His memoir is a remarkable document and a valuable primary source. He offers the perspective of a Jew in Russia and the southern United States. Most significantly, Davidson’s memoir provides a participant’s perspective of art in upstate South Carolina during the 1930s and 1940s. Little has been written about art in South Carolina, or for that matter in the South as a whole, during this time period. Davidson’s memoir is therefore an invaluable resource on art history in the modern South. Davidson’s memoir can be divided into four parts: his ancestors’ memories, his memories of Russia, the immigration process, and his life in the United States. Like many memoirists, he commences with the oral history of his family, weaving together his mother’s past and its effect on his childhood. Because Davidson did not personally experience the events he describes, this portion of the memoir cannot be considered reliable as an account of his family’s experiences in the Russian empire. Davidson includes secondhand and third-hand information, which the reader must treat as fiction; however, this portion of the memoir is still highly valuable, as it contains a rich oral history of life in rural Russia and the Jewish Pale. Davidson’s mother, Chasia, was a formative force in his life and memory, for it is her stories that affected the telling of his autobiography. Davidson describes how Chasia was deprived of her inheritance: her father, Zalmon, gave her mother’s pearls to her stepmother, even though they had been promised to Chasia. Upon her father’s death, Chasia’s stepmother obtained all their family valuables, and the pearls were passed to her stepmother’s niece. Pearl necklaces were not only monetarily valuable, but also culturally 4 significant to Jews: Jewish women wore pearl necklaces on the Sabbath.7 Davidson suggests this stolen inheritance eventually led to their emigration. While Chasia’s father was still alive, her brother, Berry, was so infuriated by the injustice that he chose to move to America. Berry was the original connection to America, which led to the immigration of all Chasia’s sons. Davidson’s proposed titles of the memoir also indicate the emphasis he placed on the stolen pearls: “The Pearls Brought Us to America” and “The Power of Pearls.” The memoir provides rich detail on Jewish culture, including Jewish traditions and myths.