Anna L. Fisher
Template:Short description Template:About
Anna Linderfelt Fisher (1878 – October 17, 1939) was an American Red Cross worker who ran an orphanage in Damascus. She was an advisor to Faisal I of Iraq in the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920, and held the rank of captain in the Syrian army. In 1927 she was appointed to the Ministry of Education in Iraq.
Early life
Anna Linderfelt (or Linderfeldt) Fisher was born in Milwaukee,<ref name="PObit">"Mrs. Anna L. Fisher Rites to be Today" Poughkeepsie Eagle-News (October 19, 1939): 9. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref> but was often described as being from New York,<ref>"American Woman, Captain" Barre Daily Times (September 14, 1920): 3. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref><ref>"U. S. Woman Real Ruler of Arabia" Roanoke Leader (August 10, 1921): 8. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref> or from California, either Pasadena or Santa Barbara, depending on the source.<ref>"Santa Barbara Woman's Work Given Tribute" Morning Press (November 4, 1919): 5. via California Digital Newspaper CollectionTemplate:Open access</ref><ref>William T. Ellis, "American Woman Made Captain in Army of Syria" Star Tribune (October 2, 1919): 12. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref> She was the daughter of Swedish-born librarian Klas August Linderfelt and Margaret Eliza Parker Linderfelt.<ref name="Daughter">"Daughter of San Diego Woman is Made Captain by Arabians" The Service Star (January 1920): 11.</ref> Her elder brother, Karl Linderfelt, was a Colorado National Guardsman involved in the Ludlow Massacre.<ref>Alan Prendergast, "Bloody Ludlow" Westword (April 17, 2014).</ref> Anna Linderfelt was educated in Paris.<ref name="Paris">"1897" The Technology Review (April 1900): 168.</ref>
Career
During World War I, Fisher joined the Red Cross to do relief work in France, and later moved to working in Damascus. In 1919, she held the rank of captain in the Syrian army.<ref>"California Woman Arab Captain" The Golden West (November 1, 1919): 8.</ref> She was described as "unofficial ruler of the Arab Kingdom of Syria", in reference to her role as advisor to Faisal I of Iraq. She organized schools, encouraged the development of traditional handicrafts,<ref>Elizabeth Williams, "Nazik al-'Abid and the Nur al-Fayha' Society: Independent Modernity, Colonial Threat, and the Space of Women" in Mohammed A. Bamyeh, ed., Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East: Liberalism, Modernity and Political Discourse (I.B. Tauris 2012): 46–48. Template:ISBN</ref> and ran the American Red Cross orphanage in Damascus.<ref>"The Woman Behind the Arab Throne" The Mentor (May 1, 1921): 34.</ref>
From 1922 to 1927, she was in New York City, managing the restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<ref>"New York Woman Gets Post in Iraq" New York Times (November 27, 1927): N7. Template:ProQuest </ref> She also donated art objects to the museum during this period.<ref>"Bequests Donors and Lenders 1922" Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1922): 49. Template:Jstor</ref><ref>"Dagger (Jambiya) with Scabbard" Gift of Mrs. Anna L. Fisher, 1922, Metropolitan Museum of Art.</ref> Soon after she resigned from that position, Fisher was appointed an attache to Iraq's Ministry of Education, based in Baghdad.<ref>"The Government of Iraq" Star-Phoenix (December 12, 1927): 20. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref><ref name="Post">"American Woman Gets Post in Iraq" The Courier (December 19, 1927): 19. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref><ref>"American Woman Heads School System in Iraq" Journal of Education (December 26, 1927): 645. Template:Jstor</ref> In 1933, the year Faisal died, she published a reminiscence, "My Memories of King Faisal", in Asia magazine.<ref>Anna L. Fisher, "My Memories of King Faisal" Asia (November 1933): 549–552.</ref>
Personal life
Anna Linderfelt was engaged to architect Oswald Constantin Hering IV in 1900, while she was living in Paris.<ref name="Paris" /> She married mining engineer William Bowditch Fisher after 1901. The couple lived in Boston and wintered in Santa Barbara, but they were living in Paris before World War I.<ref name="Daughter" /> They had a daughter, Frances Fisher (later Collins), born in Idaho in 1907.<ref name="Post" /><ref>"Frances Fisher Collins" Poughkeepsie Journal (June 18, 2002): 4B. via Newspapers.comTemplate:Free access</ref> Anna L. Fisher died in 1939, at her daughter's home in Millbrook, New York, aged 61 years.<ref name="PObit" />
References
External links
- "Mrs. Anna L. Fisher of Santa Barbara, Cal. Head of the Damascus Orphanage, established by the American Red Cross", photograph of Fisher in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
- Another photograph of Anna L. Fisher at the American Red Cross orphanage in Damascus, in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.