Anna Strunsky

Who was Anna Strunsky?

Anna Strunsky Walling was an early 20th Century American author and proponent of socialism. Her work focused on social problems, literature, and the labor movement.

Anna Strunsky was born into a Jewish family in Babinots, Russia, March 21, 1877. Her family emigrated to New York City when she was nine years old. After several years in New York, in 1893, the family moved to San Francisco, where her family lived in the home of her brother, Dr. Max Strunsky. Anna joined the Socialist Labor Party as a teenager and remained a socialist the rest of her life. Anna studied at Stanford University. While at Stanford, Anna met the young writer Jack London, and they became close friends. She and London spent a great deal of time together discussing social and political issues. Anna and her sister Rose became leading members of the turn of the 20th century San Francisco intellectual scene, part of a radical group of young Californian writers and artists known as "The Crowd" that included Jack London, Jim Whitaker, George Sterling, and others. Anna's first book, The Kempton-Wace Letters, co-authored with Jack London, was published anonymously in 1903.