A feast for eye and mind

No, not just Mary Wollstonecraft herself, delectable though she no doubt was. The visual and mental feast I refer to is the latest in a series of magnificent photomontages by Red Saunders. This cleverly composed image of the Rational Dissenters of  Newington Green features a group of women, with Mary in the centre, and two men, presumably Dr Price --and Friendly Church, perhaps? The church is behind them; the brick terrace where the minister lived has been digitally extended beyond its wildest mid-seventeenth century ambitions; the green is free, or bereft, both of children's playing equipment and lowing cattle.

It is one of several large photo/compositions, collectively called "Hidden",  and will be on display in the foyer of the Museum of London until 6 April. I sincerely hope that the collection will remain on the website indefinitely.

Here is the image of Mary, and here the Museum's general explanation of what it calls "tableaux vivant":

"Hidden" engages with a different historical narrative involving dissenters, revolutionaries and radicals. Red Saunders combines his photographic practice with cultural, artistic, musical, and political activism.  He said, "I recreate important moments in the long struggle of working people for democracy and social justice. History has been dominated by kings, queens, war and ‘great men’."

A leaflet of local (Islington) women

Mary Wollstonecraft is included in a new leaflet entitled "Islington Women". She is in good company, appearing in the education section alongside philanthropist Alice Owen (1547–1613). Other sections are:

• Votes for Women --great graphics for jujitsu instructor Edith Margaret Garrud (1872-1971) and the suffragettes in Holloway Prison
• health  -- Florence Keen (1868-1942), founder in 1913 of the North Islington Infant Welfare Centre and School for Mothers, and Marie Stopes (1880–1958), pioneer of birth control and sex education -- and a eugenist, not that that is mentioned in the brief text
• arts -- children's illustrator Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) and theatre manager Lilian Baylis (1874–1937)
• "international influence" -- Caroline Chisholm (1808-1877), who helped emigrants to Australia, and Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), an explorer who died as young as Mary.

The leaflet, available as pdf or as a webpage, was produced by the heritage department of Islington Council, the same team behind the green plaque unveiled last week, which I wrote about here. 

Plaque is well and truly unveiled

The Islington Tribune came through with a good article here entitled "Mary Wollstonecraft gets a green plaque at Newington Green Primary... will statue be next?" The plaque was commissioned by Islington Council, whose page on it is here.

A plaque is all very well and good, but there must be a reason why I Freudianly slip-type it as "plague" instead. A plaque is a sort of holding point. Wollstonecraft deserves a proper statue, hence the committee to make it happen, Mary on the Green. Beyond that, what about an institution in her name -- a girls' school in Afghanistan, a women's leadership institute, a museum, possibly in Richard Price's house on Newington Green. (There is an inspiring example of a cluster of modern initiatives around an early feminist: in Rochester, New York, where Susan B. Anthony lived and worked. More on them another time.) And beyond a statue and institution: a full-monty biopic -- Mary, the Movie.

There are several plaques to Mary in London. None are Blue Plaques; English Heritage is very strict about their criteria, and there are no buildings still standing in which Mary lived or worked. In 2004, biographer Claire Tomalin unveiled a plaque in Southwark near Blackfriars Bridge (warning: it appears blue to the casual viewer, but this may be an illusion). Why there? Because from 1787 Mary lived on George Street (now Dolben Street), and the plaque is on number 45, "a 20th-century building but Thompson House next door would have been known" to her. While there, she wrote Original Stories, with William Blake as its illustrator. Shelley lived nearby in Nelson Square some years later, where he has his own plaque. 


There is a plaque on the site of the Polygon in Camden, her final home, and thus the birthplace of Mary Shelley. There are those odd gates at Spitalfields. There is the Mary Wollstonecraft Lecture Theatre at Bournemouth University and the Mary Wollstonecraft Memorial Lecture at the University of Hull. Any more examples would be gratefully received, but I'm not expecting a flood.  

Not such a pioneer?

... the case for improving women’s rights had been put increasingly in prior years: by Mrs Makin in 1673, by Mary Astell in 1694, by Daniel Defoe in 1697. Steele, Addison, and Swift urged that women should be given a better education. A woman under the pseudonym of Sophia published Woman Not Inferior to Man in 1739. Catherine Macauly, in her book Letters on Education, maintained that women and men should get the same education. (This was reviewed approvingly by Wollstonecraft.) A Declaration of the Rights of Woman was published in France in 1791. Thus, Wollstonecraft’s work was one of several that ultimately led to the enfranchisement of women in the Twentieth Century. The vigor with which she put her case probably sharpened the debate and drew greater attention to the situation of women.

http://www.humanistictexts.org/wollstone.htm

And this was just in English. Mary also had access to French texts at home, and she read German too. Nothing comes out of nothing: she drew on many streams, just as she in turn gave to many others.

Woman's Hour interview

Mary Wollstonecraft got almost ten minutes on Radio 4 today, via Jenni Murray, esteemed presenter of Woman's Hour, and Barbara Taylor, biographer mentioned previously, and me. [updated] You can listen here. I begin by reading one of the most excerpted passages, from the introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. [updated] The interview was included in the pick of the female week, Weekend Woman's Hour, but truncated.

[updated] I know I muddled that letter. It was to Jane Arden (ardent Jane!), and I paraphrased. Mary wrote: "I am a little singular in my thoughts of love and friendship; I must have the first place or none". I do know the difference between poetic truth and historical accuracy, but you try maintaining that distinction when under the steely eye of one of the BBC's finest interviewers. -- Help with transcription is sought here.

International Women's Day 100th anniversary

Strange to think that the founders of International Women's Day are closer to us in time than they are to Mary Wollstonecraft. Today we celebrate 100 years of IWD; she died more than 100 years before IWD started.

Today Mary got a plaque from Islington Council and a letter in The Guardian.

During Mary's time in the Dissenters' village of Newington Green, she learned to see the injustices of the world through political eyes. It was the place, centred around its nonconformist chapel, that radicalised her. Lyndall Gordon's biography has a good chapter on the village and the inhabitants who influenced her, especially Richard Price, the gentle and theoretical revolutionary.  Islington Borough Council decided to create a plaque to her, and today it was unveiled, with much fanfare of councillors. The reception, fittingly, was in the church, and began with a choir of wriggling nine year olds from the primary school on whose outside wall the plaque had been affixed. I made sure the head teacher got an enthusiastic earful about Mary's important pedagogical work. Jeremy Corbyn, the local MP and quite a rebel in his own way, was there too, and promised his support. (By way of contrast, here's  the reverend's 2009 address about "Prophetic Mary"). 

Mary also got a letter in the liberal-lefty's broadsheet of choice, The Guardian. Or rather, Mary on the Green did. I've spent too much of the past weeks finding out more than I ever thought I would want to know about how to reach close to 1000 Parliamentarians. In the end, our letter got placed high up, with 70 splendid signatures supporting the campaign for a memorial statue of Mary. There was an accompanying piece by Maev Kennedy.

And now BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour has approached me; I'll be chatting with biographer Barbara Taylor on Thursday, at some point between 10:00 and 10:45 GMT. Tune those dials!

Two women elope

I don’t want to stray too much into Mary Shelley territory -- indeed, she can be a hindrance in searches - but I have just read that she aided two women to elope! In Intimate Friends: women who loved women (1778-1928), Martha Vicinus tells the story of Mary Diana Dods (1791? -1830?),  the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat, who disguised herself as a man, changed her name to Walter Sholto Douglas, and married her pregnant friend Isabella Robinson. Mary Shelley, already a friend, helped the two women get passports and escape to Paris. MS’s help was discovered by Betty T. Bennett, an American academic, who compiled her letters in the 1980s.

MS had, famously, eloped with Shelley when she was 16 and he was married to another woman (with whom he had also eloped when she was that age: the poet had form).  Did this dispose MS favourably towards the couple's elopement? Presumably she knew of her mother's passionate devotion to Fanny (and before her, Ardent Jane). Did this dispose her favourably towards the two women, devoted to each other?

Intimate Friends mentions Mary Wollstonecraft in the introduction, but only once in the index, and does not explore her story. Nonetheless, the daughter cannot be understood without knowing the mother.