Jacqueline, Bernard, 1918-

Jacqueline de Sieyes Bernard, daughter of Jacques Edouard, a diplomat, and Louise (Paine) de Sieyes, was born May 5, 1921, in Le Bourget du Lac, Savoie, France. After moving to the United States with her family in 1927, she attended the Madeira School in Greenway, Virgina (1935-1939), Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York (1939-1941), and the University of Chicago (1941-1942). She moved to Mexico in 1942 and worked as a researcher for Revista Tiempo, a weekly news magazine, where she met Allen Bernard, whom she married in 1943. They had one son, Joel Bernard (b. 1945), and divorced in 1952. She attended night classes at the City College of New York (1960-1982), and the New School for Social Research, Parsons School of Design, also in New York City (1980-1983).

Bernard held a variety of jobs, including reporter for the Washington Post (1945-1946), writer for U.S. Camera (1946), picture researcher at Pare Lorentz Associates (1949-1951), Educational Director at Filmstrip House (1953-1957), and copywriter at B.L. Mazel Advertising, Inc. (1957-1959). Between jobs, she sold toys at Macy's, performed market research, and worked in a factory. In 1956, she co-founded Parents without Partners, a national organization for unmarried parents and their children. She was active in left-wing politics and the civil rights movement, and campaigned for rights of female prisoners. Other interests included Appalachian women writers and coal miners, Latin American women, and women in China.

She wrote two books for young adults: Journey toward Freedom: The Story of Sojourner Truth (Norton, 1967), and Voices from the Southwest (Scholastic Book Service, 1972). She also authored The Children You Gave Us (Jewish Child Care Association, 1973), a history of the Jewish Child Care Association of New York, and Daughter of the Mines, an unpublished "as told to" life story of an Appalachian woman in West Virginia. Bernard also wrote numerous articles, short stories, poetry, book reviews, and letters to the editor.

In 1983, Bernard was murdered in her apartment in New York City; the case remains unsolved.

From the guide to the Papers, (inclusive), (bulk), 1893-1983, 1943-1983, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)