Review: Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist

Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist

by Monica Franklin & Erin Della Mattia

Second Story Press, 2024

Category: Middle Grade

Reviewer: Amy Blaine

Buy at Bookshop.org

Student. Survivor. Newcomer. Quaker. Mother. Environmentalist. Scientist. These are but a few of the words used to describe the literal and figurative chapters in a labor of love titled Undaunted Ursula Franklin: Activist, Educator, Scientist, a biography carefully and skillfully written by her daughter Monica Franklin and co-author Erica Della Mattia. 

 

The only child of a Protestant archeologist and a Jewish art historian, Ursula Maria Martius was born in Munich in 1921. Ursula was a curious and inquisitive child. She began her higher educational career just as Hitler was coming to power. By the time Ursula was awarded a scholarship to England, it was too late: the war broke out and Ursula had to remain in Germany. She attended the University of Berlin in perilous circumstances and studied math and chemistry. 

 

In 1942, at twenty years old, her time at university ended abruptly. Forced from her school, she and her mother were arrested by the Nazis and Ursula was taken to a forced labor camp. Incredibly, and possibly due to her expertise in the sciences, Ursula survived the work camp and after 18 months she was released. After several harrowing years, she was reunited with her father and mother in Berlin. Ursula continued her education, but opportunities were limited. The Lady Davis Fellowship brought her to Canada in 1949 as a researcher at the University of Toronto, a country where she would spend the rest of her life. 

 

Distrustful of organized religion after the war, Ursula turned instead to something she truly believed in: activism and Quakerism, due to its opposition to violence and its egalitarian structure. Her life’s cumulative experiences: in Germany, as a scientist, as a professor, her commitment to feminism, and her role as a pacifist, led to the position of director of research for Voice of Women and her family’s involvement in the Canadian Friends Service Committee, especially during the Vietnam War.

 
Each chapter about Ursula Franklin’s life begins with a brief paragraph, set in the past, and told in the third person, present tense, offering a vivid glimpse of what her world might have been like at different stages of her life. The narrative then seamlessly transitions to Monica Franklin’s voice, who tells us, in the first person, about her mother’s journey from Germany to Toronto. In accessible, friendly language, the book includes photographs and callouts which help to set Ursula’s life in historical and geographical context. 

 

Although this book does not specifically focus on Judaism, clearly Ursula Franklin’s destiny was set into motion by the fact that she was born into a Jewish family in the 1920s. As with many survivors of traumatic events and circumstances, not much was spoken about her experiences and survival in Germany, and the book does not dwell on this time period specifically. Her daughter writes, “It might be surprising that my mother didn’t feel much of a connection to the Jewish population in Toronto…her experiences during the war led her to be distrustful of all organized religions.” Additionally, the scars of her life in Germany remained in ways that cut to the bone: aversion to loud noises, the “patriotic” displays in her new country, and a frugal life that very much included the “make do and mend” mentality of the second World War. 

 

This book would be a fascinating choice for a social studies book group. It would also be a nice fit for those exploring the roots of feminism, the emergence of women in the sciences, and the status and experiences of women in the world of higher education. Canadian readers, especially educators, may wish to take a look at the EcoSpark website, a project that emerged from Ursula’s founding of the Citizen’s Environmental Watch organization. The book would make a nice companion read to other memoirs and biographies showing how “ordinary” people can use their deep-seated convictions, borne of experience, to make a positive difference for the present and the future. While it does not contain enough Jewish content for Sydney Taylor recognition, it is nevertheless a highly recommended book.

 

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Reviewer Amy Blaine is an elementary school librarian who enjoys reading biographies of "ordinary" people. She blogs at YourNextJewishRead.com