Sarah Fell-Yellin papers (Ms. 2008.030)

Biographical note

To put the Sarah Fell-Yellin papers in their historical context, a sketch of the history of Poland in general, and Bialystok in particular in helpful. A very brief look at the role Jewish immigrants played in the history of the early 20th century in the United States is also necessary.. Both of the Yellins came from Poland which has a long history of conquest, division and revolution. Before World War II, it also had the largest Jewish community in Europe and a still vigorous though fading tradition of religious toleration. In 1795, it was divided among its powerful neighbors : The Russian Empire, Hapsburg Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia. Poles were drafted into three armies in World War I and fought against each other, sustaining over a million casualties. As part of the Treaty of Versailles, Poland regained its independence which it kept until the eve of World War II.

Bialystok is the largest city in northeast Poland and the second largest in the country. When the tripartite division of the country took place in 1795, Bialystok became part of Prussia, but in 1807 it became part of the Russian Empire. It developed into a major textile manufacturing center during the 19th century and, as it did so, its population grew to approximately 66,000 with more than half of them Jews. During World War II, the town was bombed and passed back and forth between Belorussian and Lithuanian control. When an independent Poland was proclaimed, Bialystok became Polish, but in 1920 the city was overrun by the Soviet army during the Polish-Soviet War. It was at this critical moment that the Yellins left Europe.

When the Yellins came to the United States, they joined a steady flow of Jews who had been immigrating since the early 19th century. By the 1870's the influx of Sephardic and German Jews was replaced by Eastern European Jews as the tradition of religious tolerance in that area waned. By 1924, approximately two million Jews had arrived in the United States, among them the Yellins. These Eastern Europeans brought their experience in industry with them and quickly took up the causes of workers' rights, civil rights, women's rights, freedom of and freedom from religion and the peace movement. All of these were colored by the socialism and communism they had espoused in Europe.

The Forwerts and The Morning Freiheit were the two newspapers most read by these communities. The Yellins worked for The Morning Freiheit or as it was also known, Der Morgen Freiheit, a Yiddish/English newspaper with both daily and weekly editions. Founded in 1922 by Moissaye Joseph Olgin, it continued publication until 1988, gradually moving from its affiliation with the Communist Party of the United States to a more socialist outlook.

Sarah Fell Yellin.

Garment worker, teacher, lecturer and poet, Sarah Fell Yellin was born in 1985 in Krynki, Poland, an area known both for its industry and its labor movements. Her uncle was a professional activist and escaped the czar's police by fleeing to New York. Her parents, a tin smith and a cigarette maker, were both members of an organized worker movement and her mother was literate in Yiddish. Sarah was sent to a private gymnasia, or high school, in Grodne where the factory owners also sent their daughters. She graduated with honors in 1912.

She returned home and taught Russian to the brothers and sisters of the workers' movement. As the refugees poured into Poland during World War I, she began to teach Yiddish to the uprooted children. As German soldiers moved in to occupy the area, the teachers were asked to teach exclusively in German. Sarah Fell refused and, warned by another teacher, managed to escape to Bialystok. Again she taught Yiddish in a school for refugees and again the German occupying armies moved in and demanded that all schooling be done in German, but this time her compromise offer of using both German and Yiddish was accepted and she stayed. The Germans were eventually replaced by Bolsheviks and Sarah Fell taught for a while in a Bolshevik school. Forced by counterrevolutionaries to retreat quickly, the Russian soldiers withdrew leaving civilian sympathizers stranded. In this emergency, Sarah Fell received money and papers from her uncle to allow her to immigrate to the United States. Once Field Marshall Pilsudski's forces were poised to take Bialystok, she and her soon to be husband, Mendel Yellin, escaped on foot to Lithuania, obtaining papers in Kaunas, Lithuania which allowed them to continue a circuitous path across Europe to Danzig, Berlin and eventually to sail November 8, 1920 third class from Liverpool to Quebec on the Victorian.

Sarah Fell and Mendel Yellin were met by Mendel Yellin's brother, Samuel, and cousin from Boston on November 20th. From there, they went on to permanent residence in Boston where they were married by Rabbi David N. Rabinowitz on Dec. 28, 1920. While Mendel Yellin is listed as having a profession, she is listed as being "at home". She became a citizen in 1938 and remained in Boston for some thirty years writing for the Morning Freiheit, organizing protests against injustices like the sales tax and the increased cost of gas and and bread, giving speeches, writing poetry and raising two sons, Hyman and Victor Fell Yellin.

The family moved to New York City where in 1957, Sarah Yellin became a garment worker, her proudest achievement, as it linked her intellectual concerns with her actual occupation. Sarah and Mendel Yellin moved on to Los Angeles, probably when Sarah Yellin retired, where they became involved in the rich musical and literary life of the Jewish community of the area.

Sarah Yellin said that she loved writing for children. Since they were the foundation of the future, she thought that stories and poems for them had to be of the highest quality. She was proud of her family which she considered a "fine intellectual unit". Her writing was not a hobby for her, but a "very serious desire to communicate ideas, emotions and experiences for the good of humanity". She died suddenly on a visit to New York in June of 1968, was cremated and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Sarah Yellin's name is given in many forms in the collection. Her first name is rendered Sarah, Sara, Sora, and Sary. Her maiden name is given as Fel or Fell.

Mendel Yellin

Born in 1894 in Bialystok, Poland, a crossroads of German, Russian, Lithuanian and Polish culture, Mendel Yellin received a diploma, written in Russian, in June 1910 from the Belostotsky Jewish Vocational School. He also received a certificate, also in Russian, in 1910 indicating that he passed his accountant examination with high marks. Various documents within the collection indicate that Mendel Yellin held a variety of jobs: superintendent of a Jewish vocational school in the Bialystok area, a commercant which can be translated as dealer or merchant, bank clerk, and salesman. He was also a labor activist and a newspaper columnist.

His 1937 membership card for the Biro-Bidjan Institute, the tickets for the 25th and 26th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Soviet Union in 1942 and 1943, his delegate card for the 1st convention of the International Workers Order in 1931, his 1943 delegate card for the 10th anniversary celebration of the Congress of American-Soviet Friendship and the share of stock in ICOR which supported Jewish colonization in the Soviet Union show the range of his activities. The stock certificates for shares of the United Workers Association of Massachusetts and his 1947 award for service to the Yiddish paper, The Morning Freiheit and his many news columns fill out the picture. He became a citizen of the United States in 1933. He died in 1985 in Dallas where he had moved to be with his son, Hyman Yellin, after his wife's death. The collection includes many articles by Mendel Yellin as well as a vivid account of his and his wife's escape on foot from Bialystok which ended in their arrival in Quebec where he had his first taste of grapefruit.

Mendel Yellin's name appears in the collection in many different ways. His first name is variously rendered as Mendel, Mendl, Mendil, Mendeles, Manuel or Menachem. His last name is given as Ellin, Elin, and Jelen as well as Yellin.

Hyman Yellin

The older of the Yellin's two sons, Hyman or Haim Yellin, was born in Boston in June of 1921. By the time of the 2nd Annual Bialystok Ball in December of 1947, the guest list in the printed program for the gala reveals that he had married and had two daughters : Jacqualine Ann and Donna Jane. At some point, a third daughter was born and there are letters from Maria to her grandfather Mendel Yellin. The family lived in Dallas, Texas where Hyman Yellin worked as an engineer for various oil companies. His area of expertise was oil pipelines and his name appears on the letterhead of the International Pipeline Association of Dallas. The collection also contains an article by him on Costa Rican pipelines. Hyman Yellin died in 1988.

Born in Boston in 1924, Victor Fell Yellin joined the faculty of New York University in 1961 as a professor of music. He had previously taught at Ohio State University and Williams College. He was a composer, a teacher, a musicologist, an author, an arranger and a conductor. After fighting in World War II, he graduated from Harvard University in 1949 where he studied with Walter Piston. His AM followed in 1952 and his PhD in 1957. He lived for some time in Paris where he studied with Darius Milhaud and spent at least one summer at the McDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Excerpts from Victor Yellin's opera Abaylar have been performed by the Metropolitan Opera Studio in New York. As a music historian, he wrote on many aspects of music both American in which he had a particular interest and the Romantic period of European music. His most widely acclaimed books are The Omnibus Idea and the definitive biography of George Whitefield Chadwick entitled Chadwick, Yankee Compose. He reconstructed two early American operas and conducted little known works by Amy Beach. He and his wife Isabel had one son, David Garo Yellin who is frequently referred to in Victor Yellin's letters to his father, Mendel Yellin. Victor Yellin died in 2005.

David Garo Yellin, or Garo Yellin as he is known professionally, is a free lance cellist based in the New York City area. He was born in 1962 and attended both New York University and Julliard in a joint degree program. He performs classical, popular and rock music in the recording studio, on Broadway, in concert and on international tours.