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Jean Evans (writer)

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Jean Evans
Born
Jean Abrahams

(1913-09-10)September 10, 1913
Winnipeg, Canada
EducationPasadena Junior College
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • psychology writer
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1936; div. 1942)​
ChildrenAnthony Ray
Writing career
GenreNon-fiction
Notable awardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1950 and 1955)

Jean Abrams (born Jean Abrahams; September 10, 1913 – ?), known under the pen name Jean Evans, was a Canadian journalist and non-fiction writer. Born in Winnipeg and educated at a California college, she worked in New York City as a feature writer for the newspaper PM and its successor the New York Star. She was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship twice, in 1950 and 1955, and wrote the book Three Men: An Experiment in the Biography of Emotion (1954).

Early life and career

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Jean Abrahams[1] was born on September 10, 1913, in Winnipeg.[2] She attended Pasadena Junior College from 1930 to 1931.[2] Employed by the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s, she moved to New York City for their Living Newspaper project.[3] She adopted the Anglicized surname Abrams, before she started using the pen name Jean Evans.[1]

In 1946, Evans was awarded the New York Newspaper Women's Club Award (now the Front Page Award).[2] She remained a feature writer at PM as it became the New York Star in 1948, remaining there until the next year.[2] Reuel Denney said that her "portrait-interviews" at PM were among the most prominent parts of the newspaper, being a "psychiatric case histories in miniature".[3] In addition to journalism, she also wrote poetry.[4]

In 1950,[5] Evans was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship "for the completion of studies of contemporary personalities".[2] In 1954, she published Three Men: An Experiment in the Biography of Emotion, centered on three people: two of lower-class backgrounds and one of upper-class background.[6] She received another Fellowship in 1955.[5]

Personal life

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Evans met Nicholas Ray while living in New York City, and they started a relationship.[7][1] They married in 1936. When Ray took a position at the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C. by January 1937, they had moved to Arlington, Virginia.[8] They had one son, Anthony Ray, named for Ray's friend and fellow Federal Theatre director Anthony Mann.[9] Washington government life wore on both Ray and Evans, and Ray's drinking and infidelity strained their marriage. Evans moved back to New York City in 1940, having found a job at PM, the new leftist newspaper. Ray returned to New York in May of that year, but the couple soon separated. A few months later Ray again attempted to reconcile, while also living at Almanac House, a Greenwich Village loft occupied by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell, core members of the Almanac Singers. Evans filed for divorce in December 1941, and the process was finalized the next summer.[10][11]

Works

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  • Three Men: An Experiment in the Biography of Emotion (1954)[a]

Notes

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  1. ↑ Reviews of this work:[3][12][13][14][6]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 McGilligan, p. 37.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Reports of the Secretary and Treasurer. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 1949. p. 87.
  3. 1 2 3 Denney, Reuel (March 21, 1954). "The Demons Within". The New York Times. p. BR3. ProQuest 113113587.
  4. ↑ Dale, Eyler. "One Book After Another". Connecticut Post. p. B4 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 "Jean Evans". Guggenheim Fellowships. Retrieved September 22, 2026.
  6. 1 2 Wood, Austin B. (July 1954). "Review of Three men: An experiment in the biography of emotion". The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 49 (3): 476–477. doi:10.1037/h0049842. ISSN 0096-851X. Archived from the original on January 6, 2022.
  7. ↑ Eisenschitz, pp. 16–17.
  8. ↑ McGilligan, p. 68.
  9. ↑ McGilligan, p. 71.
  10. ↑ Kashner, Sam (2005). "Dangerous Talents". Vanity Fair. Vol. (March).
  11. ↑ McGilligan, pp. 76–79, 84–87, 90–91, 98.
  12. ↑ Rogers, W. G. (March 22, 1954). "The Literary Guidepost". The La Crosse Tribune. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Books Offer Gateways Into Young Minds". The Richmond News Leader. November 30, 1954. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Three Emotional Cripples". The Sydney Morning Herald. January 22, 1955. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  • Eisenschitz, Bernard (1993). Nicholas Ray: An American Journey. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-14086-6.
  • McGilligan, Patrick (2011). Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-073137-3.
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