Rayna Prohme Explained

Rayna Prohme (1894 - 1927) was a journalist who covered the communist movement in China in the late 1920s.

Biography

She was born Rayna Simons, the daughter of a successful Jewish businessman. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1917,^[1] where she befriended Dorothy Day.^[2] Day's book, The Long Loneliness, describes their activities reading socialist novellas and joining the Socialist Party of America.^[3]

From 1918 to 1922 she was married to Samson Raphaelson, a marriage that ended in divorce.^[4] She later met and married William "Bill" Prohme who worked for William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. They moved to China, where Prohme's sister, Grace Simons was working in China.^[5]

In 1926 she started working with Eugene Chen who was publishing the People's Tribune.^[6] Prohme and the American journalist Milly Bennett edited the People's Tribune in Hankou from 1926 until July 1927.^[7] While in China, Prohme was among the people admiring Mikhail Markowitsch Borodin, whom Lenin had sent to China in September 1923. Jointly Prohme and Bennett wrote a speech in which Soong Ching-ling, Sun Yat-sen's wife, resigned from her government position, and then Prohme helped her leave Hankou and make her way to Russia.^[8] Prohme also met the American screen writer Vincent Sheean in 1926 and he would eventually dedicate his memoir, Personal History, to Prohme whom he called "a marvelously pure flame".^[9] Within Personal History, Sheean talks about Prohme's work in China.^{[10] [11]} He also talks about his relationship to her in an article published in the Atlantic Monthly.^[12]

Anna Louise Strong tried to help Prohme when she became ill; however, Prohme died on November 21, 1927,^{[13] [14]} and was cremated in Russia.^[15] A book of Prohme's letters about her reporting during the Chinese Revolution was published after her death.^[16]

Selected publications

• Book: Hirson . Baruch . Reporting the Chinese Revolution: The Letters of Rayna Prohme . Prohme . Rayna . Knodel . Arthur J. . 2007-08-20 . Pluto Press . 978-0-7453-2642-9 . en.

Further reading

• Book: Bennett, Milly . On Her Own: Journalistic Adventures from San Francisco to the Chinese Revolution, 1917-1927 . 1993 . M.E. Sharpe . 978-1-56324-182-6 . en.
• Book: French, Paul . Through the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao . 2009-05-01 . Hong Kong University Press . 978-962-209-982-1 . en.
• Book: Rand, Peter . China hands : the adventures and ordeals of the American journalists who joined forces with the great Chinese revolution . 1995 . New York : Simon & Schuster . Internet Archive . 978-0-684-80844-4.

Notes and References

1. Book: Taylor, S. J. . Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times's Man in Moscow . 1990-03-29 . Oxford University Press, USA . 978-0-19-505700-3 . en.
2. Book: Nies, Judith . Nine Women: Portraits from the American Radical Tradition . 2002-10-15 . University of California Press . 978-0-520-22965-5 . en.
3. Book: Day, Dorothy . The long loneliness : the autobiography of Dorothy Day . 1981 . Harper & Row . 0-06-061751-9 . San Francisco . 7554814.
4. Book: Jacobs, Dan N. (Dan Norman) . Borodin : Stalin's man in China . 1981 . Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press . Internet Archive . 978-0-674-07910-6.
5. Book: French, Paul . Through the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao . 2009-05-01 . Hong Kong University Press . 978-962-209-982-1 . en.
6. Book: Chen, Yuan-tsung . Return to the Middle Kingdom: One Family, Three Revolutionaries, and the Birth of Modern China . 2008 . Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. . 978-1-4027-5697-9 . en.
7. King . Marjorie M. . 1994 . Review of On Her Own: Journalistic Adventures from San Francisco to the Chinese Revolution, 1917—1927 . China Review International . 1 . 1 . 59–62 . 23728654 . 1069-5834.
8. Book: Chang, Jung . Mme Sun Yat-Sen (Soong Ching-ling) . 1986 . Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Penguin Books . Internet Archive . 978-0-14-008455-9.
9. Book: Pomfret, John . The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present . 2016-11-29 . Henry Holt and Company . 978-1-4299-4412-0 . en.
10. Book: Sheean, Vincent . In search of history : the modern gothic . 1933 . George Allen and Unwin, London.
11. Hamilton . John Maxwell . 2008 . Interpret the World . Columbia Journalism Review . 47 . 2 . EBSCO.
12. Book: Sheean, Vincent . Finale in Moscow . 1935 . Atlantic Media, Inc. . The Atlantic Monthly . 155 . 1 . English.
13. Web site: November 22, 1927 . RAYNA PROHME DEAD; DEVOTED TO CHINESE; American Girl Who Gave Her Life to Revolution Breathes Her Last in Moscow. . 2022-04-15 . New York Times . en.
14. Book: Schwartz, Stephen . From west to east : California and the making of the American mind . 1998 . New York : Free Press . Internet Archive . 978-0-684-83134-3.
15. News: 1927-11-25 . Red rites for Mrs. Prohme . 6 . The Kansas City Times . 2022-04-15.
16. Book: Hirson . Baruch . Reporting the Chinese Revolution: The Letters of Rayna Prohme . Prohme . Rayna . Knodel . Arthur J. . 2007-08-20 . Pluto Press . 978-0-7453-2642-9 . en.
    Reviewed by
    • Mackinnon . Stephen R. . 2008 . Review of Reporting the Chinese Revolution: The Letters of Rayna Prohme . Pacific Affairs . 81 . 1 . 107–109 . 0030-851X . 40377493.
    • Gittings . John . 2008 . Review of Reporting the Chinese Revolution: The Letters of Rayna Prohme . Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London . 71 . 3 . 597–598 . 10.1017/S0041977X08001110 . 0041-977X . 40378828 . 162561079.