Yetta Dorothea Geffen
American musician, journalist and publicist
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Yetta Dorothea Geffen (December 10, 1891 – May 21, 1986), also known as Jetta Geffen Mirkil, was an American musician, journalist, and publicist. She went to Europe after World War I to entertain the troops, playing violin in an all-female quintet sponsored by the YMCA.
Yetta Dorothea Geffen | |
|---|---|
 Yetta Geffen, from a 1919 publication | |
| Born | December 10, 1891 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | May 21, 1986 (age 94) Longmeadow, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Other names | Jetta Geffen, Jetta Mirkil |
| Occupations | Musician, publicist, journalist, editor |
Early life
Geffen was born in Boston and raised in New York City, the daughter of Charles Geffen and Vera Schneirova Geffen.[1][2] Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants.[3] Her father was a painter and a musician. She attended Wadleigh High School for Girls,[4] and trained as a musician at the Institute of Musical Art under Frank Damrosch.[5]
Career
Geffen was a member of the editorial staffs at the New York Press and the Washington Times.[6] She also contributed to the New York Tribune, Musical Courier,[7] The Theatre,[8] and The Musical Observer.[9] She often interviewed musicians and actors, but she also covered the women's suffrage movement,[10] and public health reforms.[11]
In 1916 she appeared in period costume for the Civil War segment of the Great Pageant at Yale.[12][13] In March 1918 she was a judge at a costume ball in Greenwich Village.[14] In 1919 she was traveling with D. W. Griffith as his press representative.[5][15] She toured post-war Europe in 1919, playing violin as part of a YMCA-sponsored musical quintet called "Just Girls".[15][16] She wrote from Europe, "Paris may face a coalless winter and New York begins to look very good to me."[17]
Geffen was also an actress,[18] and did publicity for the Greenwich Village Theatre.[19] In 1925, Geffen was managing director of the Richard Mansfield Players in New London, Connecticut.[20][21] She managed the Fifth Avenue Playhouse in Greenwich Village in 1926.[22]
Publications
- "The Cabaret Booking Agency" (1913)[8]
- "Clinging Vines No More; Gently Nurtured Women Who Now Incite to Riot" (1914)[10]
- "Gossip Anent Our Spring Coiffure? Is it to be High, Low, False or Real?" (1914)[23]
- "Lou-Tellegen, Newest of Matinee Idols, Makes Love in Six Tongues and Calls American Girl Cultured and 'Tres Chic'" (1914)[24]
- "A Queen of Stage Adventuresses" (1914)[25]
- "Some Recent Hits" (1915)[26]
- "Community Action Remedy for Cruel Waste of Babies' Lives" (1915)[11]
- "Mme. Calve Great Even to her Own Secretary" (1915)[6]
- "Outdoor Music on a Huge Scale" (1916)[27]
- "The Russian Ballet Rehearses" (1916)[7]
- "The Yale Pageant" (1916)[13]
- "Wisdom and Wit from the Lips of Teresa Carreño" (1917)[28]
- "Leopold Godowsky Discusses the Piano and the Universal Brotherhood of Art" (1918)[9]
- "The Romantic Courtship of Gilda Varesi" (1922)[29]