Clara Taylor's letters from Russia 1917-1919
On November 5, 1917, Clara Taylor arrived in Petrograd (Moscow), Russia. A native of Taylorville, Illinois, and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (Madison)in 1910 with a degree in economics, Clara was an industrial expert employed by the YWCA. She was sent to Russia to study the factories and conditions for women who worked in them. In the newly opened Moscow YWCA, the American women taught English, home economics, bookkeeping, literature, and basketball. In the months since her arrival, Clara had a unique vantage point to watch the Russian Revolution of 1917 unfold. In her letters home (which have been compiled by her great- grandniece, Katrina, and Katrina's mother, Patricia) Clara told of the food shortages, what the YW staff ate for dinner, the storming of the Winter Palace, bartering for sugar, conversing with nobility, and how the Bolshevik suppression of free speech hindered international communication. Her letters give a unique first-hand account of the political, social, and economic revolution that swept through Russia.
