Love Is the Measure: A Biography of Dorothy Day
by Jim Forest
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jim ForestEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-02
ISBN: 0883449420
Number of pages: 166
Publisher: Orbis Books
Book Reviews of Love Is the Measure: A Biography of Dorothy Day
Book Review: The 20th Century and its relationship with Dorothy Day
Summary: 3 Stars
The controversy surrounding Dorothy Day's long life epitomizes a quote by Dom Helder Camara; "When you give food to the hungry, they call you a saint. But when you ask why the hungry have no food, they call you a Communist" (Forest, 204). She was both revered and criticized for being a friend of the poor and unemployed and pushing the envelope in their favor to such a point that J. Edgar Hoover recommended she "be considered for custodial detention in the event of national emergency" (Forest 178). Love is the Measure, a biography of her life by fellow Catholic Worker Jim Forest, displays this oscillating view of Dorothy Day.
The first few chapters highlight Dorothy's childhood, following her family's moves from Brooklyn to California to Chicago as her father moves from newspaper to newspaper. It was her father's strict parenting-style that led her to remain in their home's library day after day, befriending Jack London, Peter Kropotkin and Upton Sinclair. These men pushed her to take walks in the grim West Side of Chicago and begin to feel a connection with the poor and the workers. Her love of reading continued into university which she attended on a scholarship and supported through manual labor. She wasn't satisfied with assisting victims of social evils, but consumed with the presence of the evils in the first place. It was a theme that rang true throughout her entire life as a reporter and eventually as a co-founder and editor of The Catholic Worker.
Her life as a reporter began shortly after as she dropped out of school and moved back to New York. She began working for The Call and entered a period of "Red Friends, Revolutionary News" as Forest eloquently entitled the chapter. She interviewed Leon Trotsky and attended dances held by anarchists before moving to another magazine, The Masses, until it was suppressed. She bided her time by taking part in a suffragette movement and hunger strike in jail. It was to be one of many times she would be arrested for civil disobedience.
She also began to spend time with a coworker in the hospital she found a temporary job. Lionel Moise was her first real love, but his disbelief in marriage and love proved difficult when she found herself pregnant and alone. Her decision to have an abortion deeply affected her and made her value her second pregnancy with Forster Batterham so immensely that she formally converted to Catholicism and baptized their child Tamar. Her faith then put her in contact with a variety of religious publications which led her to Peter Maurin. He was the man who pushed Dorothy to create The Catholic Worker, the publication she is most famous for to this day. Peter wanted to advocate "steps that could bring about the peaceful transformation of society" (78) in a publication centered upon faith principles and believed appropriately that Dorothy was essential to the project.
On May 1, 1933, The Catholic Worker printed 2,500 copies and handed them out at the gathering of 50,000 in Union Square in New York (1-3). The printings fluctuated over the years as the publication both gained rapid successes and lost subscribers over Dorothy's unwavering stance of non-violence and appreciation of unions and protests, all of which were identified with communism. It was in this that Dorothy really created controversy.
Furthermore, it was out of the publication that houses of hospitality came about, places where staff members would feed, cloth, and shelter anyone who wished or desired it. The houses later expanded into farms and community living that staff members and faithful subscribers became residents of for years and years. It was in a house of hospitality that Dorothy finally passed away in November of 1980. She had a simple funeral with a plain casket and was dressed in donated clothes (200-201).
Overall, the novel is a quick read that touches upon the multitude of key points and people in Day's life. However, ostensibly the impressive list of events creates the illusion that one is reading an abridged version of United States and World history of the twentieth century. Consequently, to accurately portray the rest of the events occurring between the first publication of The Catholic Worker and her death a half a century later would require a much lengthier recitation, something the book does do in great detail. To demonstrate this fact, one should know that Dorothy, having been born in 1897, was privy to such high-profile events as the Women's Suffrage Movement, the Great Depression and May Day, both World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the McCarthy era of fear, among others. Furthermore, her controversial stances put her in contact with names such as Thomas Merton, various Popes, Cesar Chavez, Mother Theresa, Leon Trotsky, and Mike Gold. While captivating, the magnitude of information and events can be viewed as wearisome and cause for some disjunction between and within the chapters. For example, Forest writes a short chapter introducing Dorothy's friendship with Ammon Hennacy and then pens a short chapter devoted to the Cold War (121-129).
While understandably necessary due to the fact that her life was extremely intertwined with these events, it left me exhausted and longing for detail about Dorothy's mannerisms and attitude. I was able to insinuate this as much as one can from learning about a plethora of her actions, but it lacked a more intimate portrait; something that surprisingly came in the Afterword. There Jim Forest revealed that he did know Dorothy personally as a co-worker at The Catholic Worker, but wanted to keep his experiences out of the narrative (202). I praise him for his professionalism and do view it as a great strength of the book; however, his short narrative at the end thoroughly entertained me and summarized the book in a more coherent and brief fashion. For example, he quotes Jack English's description of seeing Dorothy for the first time. "She talked the entire lecture with a cigarette hanging out of a corner of her mouth, with a beret on, and someone said it looked as if she needed her neck washed" (203). This description painted a vivid picture in my mind that otherwise was foggy from the snip-it's in the novel and made me long to hear her speak.
Overall I would recommend this book as it does professionally portray how involved Dorothy was in almost every major movement and protest in the twentieth century. I would just warn readers to cherish the beginning and the afterword, with their description of the intimate moments that create the person whom caused so much controversy from a love of the poor and desolate.
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