Emma Messing

Emma Messing (October 29, 1872 – April 21, 1950) was a Jewish-American stenographer, vaudeville actress, and the first American woman to work abroad at an American embassy.

Early life and education Messing was born on October 29, 1872, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the daughter of Rabbi Mayer Messing (the rabbi of the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation) and Rieckchen "Ricca." Messing graduated from the Indianapolis High School in 1889. In 1903, she started taking courses at the Bush Conservatory of Music.

Drama career By 1896, Messing was working as a stenographer, an in-demand job in the state capital, and her translation skills were useful for the city's large German immigration population. In 1905, she and her sister Josephine went into vaudeville as the Southern Sisters, with Emma going by June Southern and Josephine by Jo Southern. They had a novelty act called "The Living Song Sheet," their Chicago debut was a hit, and their parents approved their daughters' entering show business. But Josephine became seriously sick that winter and they had to cancel their 1906 shows.

In 1910, Messing went to New York City and began studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1911, she signed a contract with theatrical managers George M. Cohan and Sam H. Harris to act in their Broadway play Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford. She then spent the next three years performing The Fortune Hunter all over the country. In 1915, she went West and was in charge of the music at the Indiana Building in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. She returned to Indianapolis in 1916 and started doing public readings for plays like John Galsworthy's Justice and Marion Craig Wentworth's War Brides. In 1921, she was appointed secretary to the United States Consulate in Prague, Czechoslovakia, but before she left she was reassigned to the American commissioner in Berlin; at the time America had not yet reestablished an American embassy. This made her the first American woman appointed to a foreign office. In 1922, she was promoted to the American Embassy in Berlin. She was stationed in Berlin for 18 years, during which time she did what she could to aid people in need with a large part of her own salary, including Jews suffering under rising antisemitism. She was still in Berlin when Nazi Germany rose to power, and at one point Ambassador William Dodd complained that there were too many Jews (like Messing) on his staff, although she was still in the embassy when Dodd left in 1937. and Timm was still attending Messing family gatherings years after Emma's death.

Messing died at home on April 21, 1950. Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman conducted her funeral service at the Aaron Rubin Funeral Home. She was buried at the Indianapolis Hebrew Cemetery.