Emily Hahn - Early Life

Early Life

One of six children of a dry goods salesman and a free-thinking mother, Emily Hahn was born in St. Louis Missouri on January 14, 1905. Nicknamed "Mickey", she moved with her family to Chicago, Illinois when she was 15. In her memoir No Hurry to Get Home, she describes how being prevented from taking a chemistry class in which she was interested caused her to switch her course of study from English to Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1926 she was the first women to receive a degree there in Mining Engineering—despite the coolness of the administration and most of her male classmates. It was a testament to her intelligence and persistence that her lab partner grudgingly admitted, "you ain't so dumb!"

After graduation she worked briefly for an engineering company in Illinois, before traveling 2,400 miles (3,900 km) across the United States by car with a female friend, both disguised as men, and then working as a "Harvey Girl" tour guide in New Mexico. Later she traveled to the Belgian Congo, where she worked for the Red Cross, and lived with a pygmy tribe for two years, before crossing Central Africa alone on foot.

Her first book, Seductio ad Absurdum: The Principles and Practices of Seduction--A Beginner's Handbook (1930), was a tongue-in-cheek exploration of how men court women. Maxim Lieber was her literary agent, 1930-1931.