Her name is ruth weiss

If you ever spelled ruth weiss’s name with capitals Ruth Weiss or RUTH WEISS, she would tell you that you spelled her name wrong. ruth weiss wasn’t only reacting specifically to the nazi party, which was defeated decades before, but to the authoritarian tendencies in her contemporary world.

A still photo of the book titled A NEW VIEW OF MATTER by ruth weiss. First published at Nakladatelstvi Mat'a Press, Czech Republic, 1999. 

ruth weiss’s relationship to authority wasn't complicated. She resisted attempts to impose order on self expression, and intentionally placed herself at odds with prevailing conventions in order to send a message. In 1950, she dyed her hair green in order to call attention to young victims of war. During the 1960s, she appeared in audacious, sensual films, promoting a freer, more encompassing view of sex and love. Also during this time, she began to only spell her name in lower-case letters.

A still photo of ruth weiss from the movie “ruth weiss: The Beat Goddess”. ruth is wearing a fashion hat and smoking while looking out.

The reason often given for this is that "it was a protest against "law and order", since in her birthplace of Germany, all nouns are capitalized", which can be attributed to Nancy Grace and Ronna C Johnson, in their book Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers.(1) However, a more illuminating explanation can be found in a 2017 interview with the Mendocino Beacon. In this interview, ruth said her name was written in all lower case as a reaction against the authoritarianism that she saw “under the brutality of the Nazi regime and unfortunately still exists in our world today.” (2)

Unlike the first explanation, the second explanation clarifies that she isn't protesting against law and order as vague concepts, but she is reacting to real world political forces. It clarifies that ruth weiss wasn’t only responding specifically to the nazi party, which was defeated decades before, but to the authoritarian tendencies in her contemporary world. It asks us to wonder if ruth saw a similarity between the Germany that she escaped from and the America that she found refuge in. Did her proximity to African Americans in the jazz world and the Chicago Art Circle, and seeing the open oppression and hostility on the part of the United states government cause her to draw this connection? Did her experiences as a woman, and therefore a second-class citizen in the 1950s, provoke the change?

A still photo of ruth weiss from the movie “ruth weiss: The Beat Goddess”. ruth weiss standing and looking into the camera with her goddess headpiece and the redwood forest in the background.

ruth never stopped writing her name in lower case letters, even as she grew older and the nazi party became a memory of the distant past. Even decades after the civil rights movement won recognition and protection under the law for women and racial minorities, her name remained in lower case. In a way, her name became a constant reminder that authoritarianism, and the political and personal battle against it, never ends.

Citations

1. Grace, Nancy M. and Ronna C. Johnson. Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. pp. 69.

2. https://mendovoice.com/2020/08/obituary-remembering-ruth-weiss-beat-poet-at-peace/