Presenter Q&A: Adam Hochschild on Rose Pastor Stokes and Her "Most Unusual Marriage"

Adam Hochschild's biography of Rose Pastor Stokes reads like a fairytale come to life: a sweatshop immigrant marries into Gilded Age New York’s high society only to become a social crusader.

CHF: Why did you decide to write a biography about Stokes?

Hochschild: This was the most unusual marriage in early 20th-century America. Rose was an extremely poor Jewish immigrant from Russia, with less than two years of formal schooling, who had gone to work in a cigar factory at the age of 11, and continued to do that work for a dozen years. Her husband Graham was WASP, with multiple graduate degrees, came from one of the wealthiest families in the United States. How could anyone not be fascinated by this match?

Fascinating, also, was the vast amount of attention the marriage drew. Americans at every level saw the marriage as the Cinderella story: Prince Charming rescues Cinderella from the ashes of her hearth, takes her to his castle, and (people hoped) they would live happily ever after.

"Americans at every level saw the marriage as the Cinderella story."

CHF: What do you find most fascinating about her life?

Hochschild: Their lives took a turn no one expected when they both joined the Socialist Party in 1906. Over the next decade they became friends with Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, W. E. B. DuBois, Lincoln Steffens, John Reed—the most boldest and most interesting Americans of their day.

Through their lives, we see the United States at an extraordinary period of its history: with vast extremes of wealth and poverty, shaken by huge strikes, yet filled with optimism that a better future lies around the corner.

"Through their lives, we see the United States at an extraordinary period of its history."

Usually it’s hard to peer into a marriage or relationship between people long dead, but in this case the abundant raw material is a writer’s dream: thousands of letters, a diary Rose kept, dueling memoirs the two wrote, thousands of newspaper articles about them, recollections of friends--and reports on Rose’s activities by undercover agents of the Bureau of Investigation, predecessor of the FBI.

Adam Hochschild is the best-selling author of ten books, including King Leopold's Ghost and To End All Wars, both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hochschild’s Bury the Chains was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN Center USA Literary Award. His latest book is Rebel Cinderella.