Jennie Mannheimer

Jennie Mannheimer (January 9, 1872 – May 26, 1943), also known professionally as Jane Manner, was an American elocutionist, acting coach, and teacher of speech and drama.

Jennie Mannheimer
Born	January 9, 1872
Died	May 26, 1943
Parents	Sigmund Mannheimer (father) Louise Herschman Mannheimer (mother)

Jennie Mannheimer, from a 1900 publication.

Early life

Mannheimer was born in New York City, the daughter of Louise Herschman Mannheimer and Sigmund Mannheimer. Her mother was a writer, translator, and inventor born in Prague, and her German-born father was a professor and librarian at Hebrew Union College.^[1] Both of her brothers became rabbis.^[2] Mannheimer was one of the first two women to earn a bachelor's degree in Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College, in 1888;^[3] she also earned degree from the University of Cincinnati, in 1892.^[4][5]

Career

Mannheimer was director of the drama department at the Cincinnati College of Music from 1900 until 1907. She also ran her own school, the Cincinnati School of Expression (1894-1912).^[6] In 1914, she went traveling in Europe with her brother, only to encounter difficulty as the First World War began. Her letters home to Cincinnati were quoted in the newspaper as first-hand accounts of the volatile situation.^[7]

Mannheimer moved to New York, where she performed dramatic readings,^[8] including at a Red Cross benefit during World War I.^[9] She opened the Jane Manner Studio to teach acting.^[10] She also wrote several texts on the topic, including The Silver Treasury of Prose and Verse for Every Mood (1934), and the Junior Silver Treasury (1938).^[3][11]

She was founder of the Drama Recital Club, and a member of the New York Drama League, the New York League of American Pen Women, the Council of Jewish Women, and the Temple Emmanu-El Women's Auxiliary.^[12]

Personal life

Mannheimer died in 1943, aged 71 years.^[5] Her papers were donated to the American Jewish Archives by her sister Edna B. Manner in the 1960s.^[3]

References

1. "Sigmund Mannheimer" in Isaac Landman, ed., The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (Universal Jewish Encyclopedia 1942): 333-334.
2. Judy Barrett Litoff and Judith McDonnell, eds., European Immigrant Women in the United States: A Biographical Dictionary (Taylor & Francis 1994): 186. ISBN
3. A Finding Aid to the Jennie Mannheimer (Jane Manner) Papers, American Jewish Archives.
4. Nahida Ruth Lazarus, Nahida Remy's The Jewish Woman (Bloch Publishing 1916): 281-282.
5. "Jane Manner Dies; Dramatic Reader" New York Times (May 28, 1943): 21.
6. Miloslav Rechcigl Jr., Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech-American Biography, Volume 2 (AuthorHouse 2016). ISBN 9781524620691
7. "In Exciting Flight from Fury of War" Des Moines Register (August 21, 1914): 1. via Newspapers.com
8. "Miss Mannheimer's Readings" New York Times (January 25, 1914): 29.
9. "Entertained Red Cross" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (December 20, 1917): 22. via Newspapers.com
10. John S. Fine and Frederic James Krome, Jews of Cincinnati (Arcadia Publishing 2007): 46. ISBN 9780738551067
11. Jacqueline Jones Royster, Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003 (Ohio University Press 2003). ISBN 9780821415085
12. "Jennie Mannheimer" in Julius Schwartz, Solomon Aaron Kaye, John Simons, eds., Who's Who in American Jewry (Jewish Biographical Bureau 1926): 412.

External links

• Marion Wilson Kimber, The Elocutionists: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word (University of Illinois Press 2017). ISBN 9780252040719