The Early Years (1911–1944)

Coming into One’s Own

Anne Eisner (fig. 1) grew up surrounded by a strong sense of culture through social and political change for women during the early part of the twentieth century. Her older sister, Dorothy, won children’s drawing prizes and decided to be an artist for life; their dignified mother, Florine (whom everyone called Fluff), marched in the suffragette parade down Fifth Avenue in 1917, when Anne was six. The fight for voting rights marked a radical transition in women’s role in American society. Anne came of age with the stock-market crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression and the struggle among artists and intellectuals in New York City to combat fascism and find a better world. She immersed herself in the study of art and found her way through periods of transition—social, political, and artistic—in turbulent times. If the context of one’s childhood tells a lot about the values one adheres to or resists, it does not determine the choices any of us make.

Anne Eisner was born on April 13, 1911, to William J. Eisner (1881–1975) and Florine “Fluff” Eisner (1884–1974). They were a second-generation Jewish family from Bohemia, long steeped in European culture. Anne’s maternal grandfather, Moritz Eisner (1852–1938), cut an elegant figure as the patriarch of the Eisner family. He had grown up in a quite well-to-do, bourgeois family, until his father, Joseph, a toll keeper, lost almost everything when the Austro-Prussian War began in 1866. His older brother Leopold went into the army, while Moritz was apprenticed to an apothecary in Vienna. Blessed with an excellent memory, as he writes in his brief, unpublished autobiography, Moritz studied physics and chemistry at the University of Vienna, but he spent as much time as possible backstage at the city’s Berg Theater; he loved everything to do with theater. At seventeen, Moritz decided to “try [his] fortune in the New World” and set out after two uncles, Meyer and Heinrich (Henry), who had settled in New York around the time of the 1848

Fig. 2a-d a-b: Moritz Eisner, c. 1920s; c from top left: Anna Zeitz Eisner; daughter Julia Eisner (?); Julia Haas Eisner, Anna’s mother; lower left, unknown, c. 1886; d: Leopold and Jamie Eisner, c. 1880s. Christie McDonald archive. revolution in Austria. Moritz, steeped in the theatrical culture of Vienna, moved to Philadelphia, where he organized a dramatic club, many of whose members were of German descent. There he met Anna Zeitz (1852–1922), a Christian, who played the piano for one of the productions. They fell deeply in love. But Moritz, who was flamboyant and generous, with a deep sense of family, had to delay marriage because he sent all his savings to a widowed sister who wished to come to the States. Once Moritz was able to make a living as a pharmacist, he and Anna married and had nine children, one of whom was Anne’s mother, Fluff.

The Eisner family tree. Left: Julia Haas Zeitz, married to Frederick Zeitz, with daughter Anna Zeitz, married to Moritz Eisner, with daughter (one of nine) Florine/Fluff Eisner. Right: unnamed mother of Moritz Eisner, Joseph Eisner (Moritz’s father), Meyer Eisner, and Henry Eisner; Leopold Eisner, married to Jamie, with son Will; Will and Fluff have two daughters, Dorothy and Anne. McDonald archive.

Once established, Moritz helped his older brother Leopold (1850–1892) emigrate from Austria. Leopold went on to settle in San Antonio, Texas. Leopold’s son, Will Eisner, who would be Anne’s father, spent his childhood there, until he was orphaned at age eleven when his mother died and Leopold committed suicide over a gambling debt. Moritz adopted his young nephew Will and brought him to live with his family. Will left school to go to work when he was thirteen. Later, after Moritz founded the Newark Paraffin and Parchment Paper Company in 1903, Will became president and, with his younger cousin Stanley Eisner, made it into a successful business; they were some of the first manufacturers of waxed paper in the United States. Lore had it that Will and his cousin Fluff had fallen in love during adolescence, although they did not marry until 1905, when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen. They became a legendary couple whose marriage lasted sixty-nine years. A redhead with a Texas-tinted New Jersey accent and a hot temper, Will was a toughie; he had to be. He learned how to take care of himself and then how to take care of everyone around him. He went on to become chairman of the Waxed Paper Industry on the War Service Board during World War I, president of the Waxed Paper Association, and director