Rochester, Anna

Labor reformer and communist intellectual Anna Rochester was born in New York City in 1880. She was the great granddaughter of the founder of Rochester, New York. While attending college, she became a Marxist scholar, proclaiming herself a socialist in 1910. She wrote and edited for the National Labor Child Committee and she was the editor of the pacifist magazine, The World Tomorrow. From 1920-1922, Anna and five other women, including her partner Grace Hutchins, formed a community house. Rochester and Hutchins set out on a worldwide quest to examine the status of women and socialism in.

Other countries. In 1927, the two founded the Labor Research Association in New York City. Rochester spent much of her life striving for the rights of children, women and the working class. Rochester wrote many articles and pamphlets concerning the labor movement and the impact of capitalism. She died in 1966.

Labor reformer and communist intellectual Anna Rochester was born in New York City in 1880. She was the great granddaughter of the founder of Rochester, New York. Journals kept by her mother reveal that from a very early age, Anna was intuitive and intelligent, taking an interest in things that were ‘inappropriate’ for her age and gender. While attending both Bryn Mawr College and Columbia University, she became a Marxist scholar, proclaiming herself a socialist in 1910. From 1912 until 1915, she wrote and edited for the National Labor Child Committee and from 1922-1926, she was the editor of a pacifist magazine, The World Tomorrow .

From 1920-1922, Anna and five other women formed a community house. One of these women was Grace Hutchins with whom Rochester would spend the rest of her life. According to Janet Lee (Hutchins’ and Rochester’s biographer), Hutchins and Rochester “were a part of [a] cohort of women whose commitment to social activism was integrated with their lesbian orientation.”

Rochester and Hutchins set out on a worldwide quest to examine the status of women and socialism in other countries. Returning to the United States in 1927, the two founded the Labor Research Association in New York City.

Rochester spent much of her life striving for the rights of children, women and the working class. She was most revered for her literature, which brought ideas to the surface that were new and unusual even among well-read people. The most well known of her books are Labor and Coal, Lenin and the Agrarian Question, The Populist Movement in the United States, Why Farmers are Poor, Capitalism and Progress and the one having the largest impact, Rulers of America . Besides monographs, Anna wrote many articles and pamphlets concerning the labor movement and the impact of capitalism.

In 1966, Anna Rochester died in the home that she shared with Grace Hutchins. Grace was by her side at the time of her death and preserved her correspondence, literary manuscripts, family memorabilia and other materials that document her life. Together with the Grace Hutchins papers, this collection provides a view of the life and times of Anna Rochester.

Source: Lee, Janet. Comrades and Partners: The Shared Lives of Grace Hutchins and Anna Rochester . Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.