Hope Hale Davis

Hope Hale Davis (née Frances Hope Hale; November 2, 1903 – October 2, 2004) was an American feminist (or "proto-feminist") and communist who later became a writer and writing teacher.

Background Davis was born Frances Hope Hale on November 2, 1903, in Iowa City, Iowa, the fifth and youngest child of Hal Hale, a school superintendent, and Frances McFarland, a teacher. Her father died young, and her mother remarried to John Overholt. When her stepfather died, too, Davis and her mother moved to Washington, D.C.

There, Davis studied at the new Corcoran School of Art and George Washington University, as well as Cincinnati University and the Portland School of Art. She did not obtain a college degree.

Career In 1924, Davis became assistant to the Stuart Walker Repertory Company's art director, for whom she painted scenery and designed costumes.

In 1983-84 she was a fellow at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. In 1985, she received an invitation to remain as a visiting scholar. She taught a class in writing from 1985 until a month before her death. Seminar titles included "How to Keep a Journal" and "Autobiography as Detective Story." Their daughter was Claudia Cockburn (died 1998), who married British performer Michael Flanders (died 1975) and had two daughters, journalists Stephanie and Laura Flanders.

That same year, she married fellow Communist, professor, and literary critic Robert Gorham Davis (died 1998), whom she met during a congress of the League of American Writers; the couple had two children, Stephen and Lydia.

Books: The Dark Way to the Plaza (New York: Doubleday, 1968) Great Day Coming: A Memoir of the 1930s (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 1994)

While Venice Sinks (unpublished)

Articles: "Musings of a Connoisseur" (New Yorker, 1931) "Real Romance" (New Yorker, 1939) "Wonderful Visit" (New Yorker, 1942) "A Memoir: Looking Back on My Years in the Party" (New Leader, 1980)