James Oppenheim

Who was James Oppenheim?

James Oppenheim, was an American poet, novelist, and editor. A lay analyst and early follower of C. G. Jung, Oppenheim was also the founder and editor of The Seven Arts, an important early 20th-century literary magazine.

He was a well-known writer of short stories and novels. His poetry followed Walt Whitman's model of free verse ruminations on "social and democratic aspects of life". Oppenheim depicted labor troubles with Fabian and suffragist themes in his novel, The Nine-Tenths and in his famous poem Bread and Roses. The slogan Bread and Roses is now commonly associated with the pivotal 1912 textile workers' strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The poem was later set to music in 1976 by Mimi Fariña and again in 1990 by John Denver.

Oppenheim's published works include Monday Morning and Other Poems; Pay Envelopes; The Nine-Tenths; The Olympian; Idle Wives; Songs For The New Age; The Beloved; War and Laughter; The Book Of Self; The Solitary; The Mystic Warrior; Golden Bird; The Sea; Behind Your Front; and American Types: A Preface To Analytic Psychology. Additionally, he contributed short stories, articles, and poems to American Magazine, American Mercury, Century, Collier's, Freeman, Harper's, Hearst's, New Republic, and The Thinker.