Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz

Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz (also Elizabeth Harold Goodman; Elizabeth Lomax; 9 May 1917 - 21 October 2010)^[1] was an American poet, writer, folklorist,^[2] and social worker.^[1] With Alan Lomax, she recorded and interviewed musicians across America, and was later the founder and Director of the South Bronx's Argus Community.^[1][3][4]

Early life

Elizabeth Harold was born on 9 May 1917, in Blanco County, Texas, and grew up in Marshall, Beaumont, and Dallas.^[1] Her maternal grandfather was liberal Judge H. T. Lyttleton, who had been declared an enemy by the Ku Klux Klan.^[5] Her mother's husband, Michael Harold, was institutionalized while Elizabeth was still a child after fatally assaulting his brother, leaving the young family destitute.^[5]

In 1935, Elizabeth was briefly married to Howard Goodman, with whom she had a daughter, Shelly.^[1]

While a freshman at the University of Texas, Elizabeth met ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax.^[5] Alan Lomax's biographer described Elizabeth as "a brilliant, beautiful political radical with a cool assuredness and grace that set her apart from other southern women... a poet, deep into literary tradition, but driven to change the world".^[5] They married in Haiti on 23 February 1937.^[5] Permission to marry there was only granted following Lomax's plea to Haitian President Sténio Vincent to waive the two week banns requirement and make an exception for their age.^[5] He wrote: “I come to you with an unusual request, the granting of which will both facilitate a scientific work, important to Haiti, and make possible the happiness of myself and my fiancée.”^[5]

Folklorist and writer

The couple swiftly began doing fieldwork together,^[6] gathering materials which included "350 feet of remarkably fine 8mm color motion picture film by Elizabeth Lomax that showed the making of drums, dances, work, domestic life, and religion" in Haiti.^[5]

They travelled widely in the United States, collecting and recording in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia.^[5][7] They made recordings of artists including Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Willie Brown, Son House, Estil C. Ball, and Woody Guthrie.^[5] Elizabeth also conducted and recorded interviews with musicians they met, including Guthrie and the fiddler Emmet Lundy.^[5]

During the 1950s, after she and Lomax divorced, she conducted lengthy interviews for Lomax with folk music personalities, including Vera Ward Hall and the Reverend Gary Davis.

In 1943,^[1] Elizabeth began working for the newly created Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs at $3,600 a year.^[5] Alan Lomax described her as one of their “top-flight script writers... working on an equal basis with Louis Untermeyer & others.”^[5] In 1944, Elizabeth gave birth to the couple's daughter, Anne Lyttleton Lomax, swiftly returning to work.^[5]

Alan and Elizabeth Lomax collaborated on “ballad-operas” for the BBC Home Service, for which Elizabeth wrote the scripts.^[1][5] One, The Chisholm Trail, was broadcast in the UK in February in 1945.^[5]

Alan Lomax wrote of his wife that:

If it weren’t for Elizabeth I’d never be able to finish anything. She helps me in every sort of way, but principally by admiring everything I do, or pretending to, so that I have the impetus to go ahead and finish the job.^[5]

Elizabeth filed for divorce in Harris County, Texas in 1950.^[5][1]

Following their divorce, the pair continued to work together.^[5] They co-edited a revision of the Alan Lomax's book on Lead Belly, to include an interview Elizabeth had conducted with his wife, Martha Ledbetter.^[5][8] She also worked to record the life history of singer and guitarist Reverend Gary Davis, and contributed other interviews - with Alabama singer Vera Hall - in service of Alan's book of autobiographies.^[5] Using her mother's surname, Lyttleton, Elizabeth wrote books and poetry, and other jobs included circus acrobat, and speech writer for Chinese First Lady Madame Chiang Kai-shek.^[1]

She married Herbert Jay Sturz in 1958, and in the same year the couple co-published a novel about Spain: Reapers of the Storm.^[1] Herbert Sturz went on to be Deputy Mayor of New York, and to help found the Vera Institute of Justice.^[1]

Argus Community

In 1968, in the Melrose district of the Bronx, Elizabeth Sturz began a program for youths "considered unteachable and incorrigible", featuring "rigorous instruction and requiring manual labor but still offering affection".^[1] The Argus Learning Center (named for the Greek myth of Argus) achieved a 70 percent success rate, and later expanded to become Argus Community.^[1] With an enlarged focus, issues addressed by the organization included teen pregnancy, prisoner reentry, and HIV/AIDS.^[1]

It began, in 1989, a program to help homeless people experiencing mental illness and addiction, called Harbor House.^[1] This sought to address a gap in provision created by many programs for mental health rejecting addicts, and many addiction programs dealing inadequately with mental health concerns.^[1] It was the first residence in New York City for those suffering with addiction and mental ill health.^[9] A New York Times article described Harbor House as "at once nurturing and demanding" for its residents.^[9]

Her book about Argus, Widening Circles, was published in 1983.^[3][10][4] She was encouraged to write it by anthropologist Margaret Mead, whose graduate students researched at Argus.^[10] Sturz devoted the book "To my mother and all parents who have had to raise their children without proper tools and supportive networks",^[10] and described it as "a plea for more opportunities, more programs, more jobs for high-risk youth.''^[4]

Although she had previously attended universities, Sturz achieved her degree during the 1970s on graduating from

Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz died from pneumonia on 21 October 2010 in Manhattan, New York.[1]

A notice in the New York Times read:

The Board of Directors and staff of Argus Community, Inc. mourn the loss of Elizabeth Lyttleton Sturz, the Founder of Argus, its President and its inspiration. Elizabeth was an artist and poet. She created Argus, a multiservice agency in the South Bronx, in 1968 and left an indelible mark. She changed lives, through her creativity, tenacity and concern, and her contributions continue to be felt, every day, as those she taught and inspired carry on her work.^[11]

Of her own intentions in founding Argus, Sturz had written: “I wanted to leave a footprint somewhere, perhaps even a wing beat.”^[1]

References