Jessica Mitford
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Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford, (September 11, 1917 - July 22, 1996), was one of the noted Mitford sisters, daughters of the second Baron Redesdale. She emigrated to the United States of America from England, after having run away with her second cousin, Esmond Romilly, a nephew of Winston Churchill to join the Republican forces in Spain. She was an adherent of communism, despite her privileged background, and was of course the sister of well-known Hitler supporters Unity and Diana Mitford. Her first husband was killed in World War Two and she later married the American lawyer Robert Edward Treuhaft.
Mitford combined a hatred of injustice with an impish wit. In the 1950s she concocted the fund-raising technique of charging guests $5.00 to come to an event, then charging them much more to leave.
Books
- Hons and Rebels (1960), the first part of her autobiography covering her youth in the Mitford household
- A Fine Old Conflict (1977), covering her years in America
- The American Way of Death (1963)
- The Trial of Dr. Spock (1970)
- Kind and Unusual Punishment: The Prison Business (1973)
- The Making of a Muckraker (1979)