[9] Her fourth published book was The Wind That Swept Mexico; The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1942, having in between printed a guidebook and a children's story.
[15] After her father had secured promises from Joseph Weinberger, of B'nai B'rith, a Jewish service organization, and his wife Frances Toor that they would look after her, Isador agreed to let Anita go.
She worked for a brief period at B'nai B'rith, meeting recent Jewish immigrants at the port of Veracruz and helping them with their paperwork and resettlement.
[5] Brenner quickly became part of the leftist bohemian group and as a journalist was a key voice in the indigenismo movement.
[20] Carleton Beals and Ernest Gruening were influential U.S. journalists whom Brenner met in this early period of her career.
[22] President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28) offered Brenner her a scholarship to participate in the cultural preservation program.
[23] In 1926, Brenner commissioned her friends Tina Modotti and Edward Weston to travel with her and take photographs for her upcoming book on Mexican decorative arts.
The National Autonomous University of Mexico provided funding for a two-volume series in which Brenner planned to document artworks in Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Puebla and Querétaro.
Weston was known for the abstract qualities of his highly focused and "precisely composed black-and-white images of semi-abstract nudes, landscapes, and organic forms".
[28] She had served as translator and editor for Manuel Gamio, a leading Mexican anthropologist, and was encouraged to pursue a doctorate by Franz Boas, the "founding father of American anthropology".
[6] According to Katherine Anne Porter's review, it reads like a "who's who" of the Mexican art scene of the 1920s, including Abraham Ángel, Adolfo Best-Maugard, Jean Charlot, Xavier Guerrero, Carlos Mérida, Gerardo Murillo Cornado (aka Dr. Atl), José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros and explains the intricate interlacing of their community of foreigners, second generation emigrants, and native born artists who have restored the "Indian" imagery of Mexico.
[8] After her successful defense of her thesis, she completed her degree and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930 to study the geographical extent of Aztec art in Mexico and at various museums in Europe.
She introduced José Clemente Orozco to Alma Reed, who helped plan his first New York showing and guided his career.
She promoted the work of Diego Rivera, though they at times had a contentious relationship, as well as Carlos Mérida[32] and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
[35] In 1934 Anita and 24 others signed an open letter on their anti-Stalin stance and received negative reviews from New Masses, which had become the leading Communist journal, branding her a Trotskyist.
[36] In 1936, it was Brenner who sent a telegram from New York to Diego Rivera asking him to use his influence to find Leon Trotsky a safe haven in Mexico.
Brenner, on behalf of the Trotskyite Fourth International, asked Rivera to assist in the crisis and secure asylum.
[38] Brenner, with her husband and two children, emigrated to Mexico in 1940,[39] to the farm in Aguascalientes her family had left when they moved to Texas.
In particular, pieces by William Randolph Hearst's papers were designed to arouse anti-Mexican feeling to protect his own land holdings in Mexico.
[47] She died in Ojuelos de Jalisco, 83 kilometres (52 mi) east of Aguascalientes, in an automobile accident on 1 December 1974, aged 69.