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Vera Mikol

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Vera Mikol
A young white woman wearing a mortarboard cap and academic robe with a white ruffled collar
Vera Mikol, from the 1920 yearbook of Radcliffe College
BornNovember 28, 1899
Chelsea, Massachusetts
Died1982 (aged 82)
Santa Barbara, California
Other namesVera Mikol Wiese, Vera M. Schuyler
Occupation(s)Journalist, researcher
Spouse(s)Ernst Wiese, Robert Livingston Schuyler

Vera Mikol (November 28, 1899 – 1982), also known as Vera Mikol Wiese and Vera M. Schuyler, was an American journalist and researcher.

Early life and education

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Vera Mikol was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the daughter of David and Lillie Mikol.[1] Her father was a close acquaintance of William Morris, and active in socialist politics in Boston;[2] he was a leader of the Ladies' Tailors and Dressmakers' Association of America,[3] and he worked as an interpreter for labor leader Samuel Gompers.[1] Her younger sister, Bettina, married David Sinclair, the son of novelist Upton Sinclair.[4]

At age 11, Mikol wrote a four-act play, The Distinguished Princess, which was produced at her school.[1] She graduated from Girls' High School in Boston in 1916.[5] She earned a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College in 1920.[6] She was secretary of the Radcliffe College chapter of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society.[7] She wrote a story, "The Tower by the Sea", for The Harvard Magazine.[8] She won a scholarship for further studies in France,[9] at the Lycée Jeanne Hachette and the Sorbonne.[10]

After France, she made further studies in Germany and at Columbia University.[11] She was listed as a graduated student in education at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1939.[12]

Career

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In 1926, Mikol was executive assistant to George E. G. Catlin, who chaired a committee studying the "social consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution" for the Social Science Research Council.[13] From 1930 to 1931, she was a Research Fellow with the Social Science Research Council.[11]

MIkol was a reporter for the New York Daily News,[14][15] and reported on archaeological finds in Egypt for The New York Times and the Montreal Gazette in 1930.[16][17][18] In 1931 she was in Naples, studying piano and possibly working for the United States Foreign Service.[19] She taught in the journalism program at Los Angeles City College.[20]

Mikol was the uncredited research director on dozens of Hollywood films in 1945 and 1946,[21] many of them westerns, thrillers, or comedies. In the 1950s, she presented her research on composer Sigismund Thalberg at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society.[22] She was active in the Los Angeles chapters of Theta Sigma Phi[23] and the Radcliffe Club.[24][25] Later in life she lived in Palm Springs, and was active in the Opera Guild[26] and the Coachella Valley chapter of the Dickens Fellowship.[27][28] In the 1970s, she was traveling often, and writing for "golf and art magazines."[29]

Personal life and legacy

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Mikol married twice.[30] Her first husband was Austrian journalist Ernst Wiese in 1937.[14][31] They divorced in 1939.[32] She was living in Pacific Palisades, California in 1957.[19] Her second husband was journalist Robert Livingston Schuyler.[27][29] She died in Santa Barbara, California in 1982, aged 82 years. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute awards a Vera M. Schuyler Fellowship, named in her memory; novelist Geraldine Brooks, novelist Mako Yoshikawa, historian Steven Zipperstein, anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and mathematician Montserrat Teixidor i Bigas are among its past recipients.[33][34][35]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Brilliant Pupil of the Boston Schools". The Boston Globe. June 21, 1911. p. 9. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Cheers for Mr. Haywood". The Boston Globe. February 9, 1908. p. 11. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Fashionable Shape is the 'Stovepipe'". The Buffalo Enquirer. January 10, 1912. p. 3. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "David Sinclair, Son of Upton Sinclair, and Prominent in University Activities, Wed". The Capital Times. October 3, 1928. p. 11. Retrieved March 18, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Graduation at Girls' High School". The Boston Globe. June 22, 1916. p. 9. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ Radcliffe College, Radcliffe 1920 (1920 yearbook): 56.
  7. ^ "College Notes". The Socialist Review: 60. December 1919.
  8. ^ Mikol, Vera (November 1919). "The Tower by the Sea". The Harvard Magazine. 1: 7–8.
  9. ^ "Honored at Radcliffe". The Boston Globe. June 20, 1920. p. 7. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Extract from Vera Mikol's Letter". The Radcliffe News. January 4, 1921. p. 4. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  11. ^ a b Social Science Research Council (U.S.) (1951). Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. The Council. p. 266.
  12. ^ University of California (1939). Register - University of California. University of California Press. p. 122.
  13. ^ Social Science Research Council committee records (1926), New York Public Library.
  14. ^ a b "Thinks Italy has Liability in Ethiopia". Hartford Courant. September 17, 1937. p. 4. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Little Theatre Dramatists are a Gloomy Crew". Daily News. May 13, 1923. p. 173. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Mikol, Vera (April 4, 1930). "Find Hold-up Story of 4,000 Years Ago; Members of the Harvard and Catholic University Group Unearth Ancient Records". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  17. ^ Mikol, Vera (March 14, 1930). "New Find Confirms Origin of Alphabet; Tablets in Sinai Desert Link Egyptian Hieroglyphs With Phoenician Characters". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  18. ^ Mikol, Vera (March 23, 1930). "Sinai Smelteries of 2000 B.C. Found; American Archaeologists Discover Copper and Turquoise Lured Egyptians and Semites". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Mikol, Vera (May–June 1957). "Thalberg's 'Erard': A Discovery". Etude. 75: 8 – via Internet Archive.
  20. ^ "Four Collegians Attend Annual Newspaper Day". Los Angeles Collegian. March 11, 1941. p. 2.
  21. ^ American Film Institute (1999). AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States. University of California Press. pp. 257, 539, 754. ISBN 978-0-520-21521-4.
  22. ^ Mikol, Vera (1958). "The Influence of Sigismund Thalberg on American Musical Taste, 1830-1872". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 102 (5): 464–468. ISSN 0003-049X. JSTOR 985592.
  23. ^ "Theta Sigma Alumnae Meet". Daily News. June 8, 1938. p. 11. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ "Vera Mikol to Speak". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. October 27, 1952. p. 12. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ "Patio Level Pool". Mirror News. May 12, 1953. p. 39. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ "Opera Guild Goes Gala for Opener". The Desert Sun. October 30, 1969. p. 8. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ^ a b "Annual Dickens Fete Set by Scholarship". The Desert Sun. February 4, 1969. p. 4. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ^ "Roast Beef for Dickens Club". Palm Desert Post. February 5, 1969. p. 5. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ a b "New Search as Passengers Relive QE2's Dunkirk Spirit". The Guardian. May 22, 1972. p. 6. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ^ "Mikol, Vera [Mrs. Ernest Wiese] (Mrs. Robert L. Schuyler), 1916-1945". Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  31. ^ "Reich Hopes to get Ethiopia, Motorcycle Tourist Asserts". The Boston Globe. September 30, 1937. p. 21. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ^ "Divorce Suits Filed". The Los Angeles Times. May 12, 1939. p. 18. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ^ Harrison, Pat (April 27, 2006). "Making fiction from fact". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  34. ^ "Mako Yoshikawa". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  35. ^ "Montserrat Teixidor i Bigas". Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
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