Torn Between Cultures

When Kathi Meyer-Baer became librarian of a distinguished music collection in 1922 at the age of thirty, she placed herself in the mainstream of cultural life in Weimar Germany. When she published a major history of music aesthetics ten years later, she seemed on the brink of a great scholarly career. Ten years later, however, forced from her homeland, she found herself struggling to rebuild her life and career in the United States. Stripped of her language and her culture, she endured years of personal hardships and professional setbacks, and she failed to achieve her goal of a permanent position at a university or public research library. As a woman and a Jew she encountered obstacles in every stage of her life, to the very end. But no setback could break her indomitable spirit or her superb discipline. Blessed with extraordinary courage and resilience, she published four path-breaking books along with more than thirty articles and hundreds of newspaper essays and reports, and her work continues to be read today. This pioneering biography captures her gripping life and scholarly achievement, and places her work both in its rich cultural grounding and in the turbulent political and social life of her time.