Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan
The Writer Christine de Pizan at Her Desk

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Kamala Harris, Madam Vice President

Kamala Harris, the First


In 2008, when she lost the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton noted: "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it." And, she predicted, "The path will be easier next time."

Eight years later, Clinton became the first woman to lead a major political party presidential ticket. And again she was defeated. But like her feminist foremothers who fought for the vote for women, she did not give up. "To all the women and especially the young women who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion," she said when she conceded. "Now, I know, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will."

Welp, today is the day, Kamala Harris is the woman, and, as she promises, “I may be the first woman to hold this office. But I won’t be the last.”

Fitting that it is in 2020, one hundred years after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment--when women took the right to vote!

Kamal Harris, appearing for the first time after her election
(image from The Guardian, 
Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images)




Friday, October 9, 2020

Harriet Hosmer: She "Knew Herself to be a Sculptor"

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, American Sculptor (born 9 October 1830)


Harriet Hosmer, 
photo by Matthew Brady
The name of Harriet Hosmer came to my attention only recently--as part of the widespread protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, in particular, and to the growing resistance movement that addressed larger issues of police brutality, systemic racism, and social injustice. 

As statues honoring Confederate generals and white supremacy at long last began to come down, a monument that remained standing was Thomas Ball's Freedman's Memorial

While the intentions of those who worked to create a monument to Lincoln's emancipation of enslaved men and women may have been good, the memorial itself as long been a source of controversy: it might portray "the hopes, dreams, [and] striving" of those who constructed it, but it also represents the "ultimate failures of reconstruction."

Recognizing Ball's monument as a "problematic depiction of the fight to achieve emancipation," Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton has said that she will introduce legislation to have the statue removed.

While the "great emancipator" might remain secure on his pedestal, at least for the moment, Ball's sculpture has undergone a new round of criticism for its imagery--a white man "giving" freedom to the unclothed black man kneeling at his feet. (For Patrick Browne's excellent essay on this "misguided" monument, written long before the events of this year, click here.)

The sculpture was funded by freed slaves, and while Frederick Douglas spoke at the monument's dedication, he later made it clear that his feelings were complex--Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation only reluctantly. Lincoln was neither the "man" nor the "model" for the struggle of those who had been enslaved. Later still, Douglas noted his reservations about the Ball design for the sculpture: “What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.” 

So that was the context in which I first heard Harriet Hosmer's name--because Thomas Ball's was only one proposal for the memorial, one that was selected after Harriet Hosmer's original design was judged to be too expensive. Or perhaps too controversial.

In fact, Harriet Hosmer's 1867 design for the sculpture had been accepted by the commission overseeing the building of the memorial. Her proposal was not for a sculpture with one submissive freed slave at Lincoln's feet. Instead, it was a monument that featured Black Americans--above a base that depicted scenes from Lincoln's life, and posted around a Lincoln lying in his casket, were to be four "colossal statues" that "display the progressive stages of liberation" of African Americans: an enslaved man for sale, a slave "laboring on the plantation," a Black man aiding Union soldiers, and, finally, a Black soldier. In describing this figure, David Cranor writes, "The latter figure, standing with eyes gazing forward in uniform and holding a gun, would be shown having gained freedom, legitimacy and power."

But white members of the commission overseeing the monument insisted on a redesign--Lincoln lying in his coffin had to be swapped out with a standing Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation in one hand. Below him were four allegorical figures (female, of course), representing liberty. The Black men were retained, but they were bumped down, farther out and below Lincoln and the Liberties.

Harriet Hosmer's redesigned
proposal for the Freedman's Memorial
Eventually, of course, Ball's design, with the "figure of a liberated slave crouching below . . . Lincoln" was substituted for Hosmer's.

So who was Harriet Hosmer?

When fundraising began for this memorial, Harriet Hosmer was a already a well-established artist. As a girl, she had not only been allowed to pursue her interests in art, but her father encouraged her interest in anatomy. Her studies were informal at first, but she traveled to St. Louis for private instruction in anatomy at the Missouri  Medical College.

After returning to Boston, she left for Rome in 1852 with the actress Charlotte Cushman. Once there, she earned a place in the studio of John Gibson (along with several other American women, including Edmonia Lewis and Emma Stebbins, disparagingly referred to by the novelist Henry James as the "white marmorean flock"). In Rome, Hosmer was not only surrounded by classical sculpture, she was also able to work with live models, a rare opportunity for women artists. She also began a relationship with Louisa, lady Ashburton, a relationship that would last twenty-five years.

Hosmer had a long and successful career. She eventually returned to the United States and died in the place of her birth, Watertown, Massachusetts, on 21 February 1908.

Hosmer's Zenobia in Chains,
Saint Louis Art Museum

Unlike many of the women I have written about here, there is a wealth of material--easily accessible--about the life and work of Harriet Hosmer, so you will be able to read widely and enjoy reproductions of her work. I find it particularly interesting that many of Hosmer's pieces are of figures of historical women, including Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, and Beatrice Cenci. And Hosmer knew several women who have made an appearance in this blog, including Susan B. Anthony, Lydia Maria Child, Phebe Ann Hanaford, and Fanny Kemble. And, hey! There is an entry for Harriet Hosmer in the Encyclopedia Britannica!!

The phrase she "knew herself to be a sculptor" comes from Maria Mitchell, the American astronomer and teacher. When she was in Rome, Mitchell met Hosmer, and her memoirs include a description of their meeting



Friday, September 18, 2020

The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died 18 September 2020


As if this annus horribilis could not get worse--plague, economic collapse, social unrest, climate disasters, Donald Trump, even murder hornets--it has tonight become much worse.

We mourn the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, legal giant, and feminist hero.

Her loss is incalculable.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP
photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP


"People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Georgetown University
4 February 2015








Monday, September 14, 2020

María of Castile, the Queen-Lieutenant

 María of Castile, queen and regent of Aragon (born 14 September 1401)


The kneeling figure of María of Castile,
Queen and lieutenant-governor of Aragón,
from a fifteenth-century illustration of
the queen at worship
The first-born child of Enrique III of Castile and Catherine of Lancaster, María of Castile was born on 14 September 1401 in Segovia.*

At the time of her birth, she was named princesa de Asturias, the title given to the Castilian king's eldest child--on 6 January 1402, the Cortes of Toledo recognized María as the primogénita al trono, the legitimate heir to the throne of Castile. 

Although her brother, Juan, would replace her as heir presumptive when he was born in 1405, she was nevertheless educated to rule--her mother, Catherine of Lancaster, had served her first regency in Castile from 1390 to 1393.**

After the death of the Enrique III in 1406, Catherine of Lancaster again assumed the regency, this time for her son, Juan. As Theresa Earenfight notes, "During Catalina's second regency María was able to observe firsthand a queen regent whose actions in the political realm influenced the young princess's own notions of the duties, responsibilities, rights, and prerogatives of a queen."

On 12 June 1415, a complicated series of marriages took place in Valencia--María of Castile was married to Alfonso of Aragón (her first cousin--Alfonso's father, Fernando I of Aragón, was Maria's uncle, her father's brother); her brother Juan, king of Castile, married Alfonso's sister, María of Aragón; and her sister, Catalina, married Alfonso's brother, Enrique of Aragón. As a result of this triple alliance,   Earenfight observes, "[f]amily squabbles, and there were many," would become "international incidents."

Less than a year after María was married, King Fernando died, and Alfonso became king of Aragón. Newly arrived a the court of Aragón, María had not had a long apprenticeship in Aragonese queenship, and she seems to have been overshadowed by the king's mother, Leonor of Albuquerque. Further complicating matters, María had not yet reached puberty at the time of her marriage, which was not consummated until she was sixteen, two years after the elaborate ceremonies of the triple alliance. She would bear her husband no heirs--whether because of her own chronic ill health or his lengthy absences from the kingdom, engaged in endless warfare. (Alfonso would father three children by two of his many mistresses.)

In 1420, when he left Aragón to pursue the crown of Sicily, Alfonso put the kingdom into María's hands. She was named not as queen-regent but as lieutenant-governor: 
In the privilegios that named María lieutenant, Alfonso clearly stated that her powers as lieutenant should be equivalent to his own as king, referring to her as his alter nos. . . . She held the highest political office in . . . Alfonso's Iberian realms and, in political terms, was second only to the king himself.
Although she may have been "weak in body and constantly attacked by illness," María of Castile, queen of Aragón  (and eventually queen consort of Sicily), was a woman remarkable for "the energy and constancy with which she pursued her goals."

María of Castile governed Aragón from 1420 until 1423, when her husband returned from his military campaign in Italy. The king of Aragón managed to spend nearly ten years in his kingdom, but in 1432 he left once again, intent on conquering Naples.*** On this occasion, he intended to leave behind Juan of Navarre as his lieutenant-governor--it was the Cortes that requested María of Castile resume her previous role. 

Alfonso of Aragón never returned to his Spanish kingdom--in 1453, he finally succeeded in gaining the crown of Naples. He remained in Italy until his death on 27 June 1458. (Evidently he was planning to conquer Genoa at the time of his death.)

In the mean time, after governing the kingdom of Aragón for more than twenty years, María of Castile had returned to Castile in 1454, after the death of her brother, Juan, to negotiate with his successor, her nephew, Enrique IV, on behalf of her husband. 

There she stayed in the royal household of Arevelo--a literal "city of ladies," where she joined her niece, Isabella of Castile, and Isabella's mother, Isabel of Portugal, dowager queen of Castile. 

María of Castile, queen and lieutenant-governor of Aragón, died at Arevelo on 7 September 1458. 

For the most extended study of the biography and politics of María of Castile, see Theresa Earenfight's The King's Other Body: María of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, quoted above. 

*This post has been adapted and expanded from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

**Catherine of Lancaster had her own claim to the throne of Castile through her mother--Catherine was the daughter of the English duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, and of Constanza of Castile, daughter and heir of Pedro of Castile and León. When Catherine of Lancaster was married to Enrique in 1388, she was sixteen and he was just nine--when Juan I of Castile died in 1390, the eighteen-year-old Catherine, now queen, became regent for Enrique, who was just eleven. According to Theresa Earenfight, "it proved to be a difficult minority and eventful regency, punctuated by struggles within the regency council itself and opposition from the powerful Castilian nobility and clergy." No doubt!

***Alfonso was just one of the many powerful men hoping to gain the favor of Joanna II of Naples and succeed to the crown of her kingdom.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

The Nineteenth Amendment--One Hundred Years

The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (certified 26 August 1920)


On 26 August 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the Nineteenth Amendment--ratified by the last of the thirty-six states on 18 August 1920, the amendment was officially a part of the U.S. Constitution.

Document certifying the
Nineteenth Amendment
This amendment "granted" women the right to vote--or, rather, the text indicates that it is "extending the right of suffrage to women."

But as Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, notes, "The textbooks when I went to school said women were given the vote."

And then, her brilliant response: "We weren’t given anything. We took it."

Like any historic struggle for social change, the long story of the suffrage movement, culminating in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, is not a simple one.

As Brent Staple has noted in a recent New York Times op-ed on the occasion of this centenary, "Americans are being forced to choose between a cherished lie and a disconcerting truth as they prepare to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment in 2020."

The "cherished lie" is that after the passage of the amendment, all women could vote. But the truth, as Staple writes, is that "millions of . . . women — particularly African-Americans in the Jim Crow South — remained shut out of the polls for decades afterward."

While African American women had worked toward suffrage alongside white women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, their struggle continued "until activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash won the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 200 years later."*

Nor did the Nineteenth Amendment "extend" the right to vote to indigenous women--in 1920, Native Americans were not considered to be citizens of the United States, so native women could not vote. The vote came much later for them: 
With the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, American-born Native women gained citizenship. But until as late as 1962, individual states still prevented them from voting on contrived grounds, such as literacy tests, poll taxes and claims that residence on a reservation meant one wasn’t also a resident of that state.
And for Asian American women? The situation was equally complicated, the right to vote still not guaranteed. Although Asian Americans born in the United States were U.S. citizens in 1920, at the time of the Nineteenth Amendment, "first generation Asian Americans did not [have citizenship]. Asian American immigrant women were therefore excluded from voting until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allowed them to gain citizenship more than three decades after the 19th Amendment."

And for Latinx women? Again:
. . . in Puerto Rico, suffragists like Luisa Capetillo worked to attain women’s voting rights, which were first given to literate women in 1929 and all Puerto Rican women in 1935. Yet literacy tests remained an effective means of keeping some Hispanic and other women of color from voting long after the federal amendment was passed. It took a 1975 extension of the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination against language minority citizens, to expand voting access to women who rely heavily on languages other than English.
Generations of women participated in the long "slog" (love Gail Collins's word here) toward suffrage --it encompassed "what suffragists counted as 480 campaigns to get state legislatures to submit the issue to the voters." Women who first took up the cause did not live to see its end.

No one gave them the right to vote. They planned for it, organized for it, demonstrated for it, and worked toward it. They argued and reasoned and shouted. They struggled for the cause and suffered for it. They committed acts of violence, and they were the victims of violence. They were mocked, ridiculed, beaten, and jailed. They went on hunger strikes, and they were force fed. Over and over again, they were defeated in the fight--nevertheless, they persisted.

Women demanded the right to vote, and they did not give up until they took it.

Now use it.

*This quotation and those that follow come from an essay posted at the PBS American Experience website, one of a series of pieces published in connection with Michelle Ferrari's documentary The Vote. No author is named for the piece I've quoted from, "Not All Women Gained the Right to Vote in 1920."






Saturday, August 15, 2020

Constance of Aragon, Regent of Sicily

Constance of Aragon, queen of Hungary, regent of Sicily, and Holy Roman Empress (crowned queen of Sicily 15 August 1209)


Constance of Aragon was the eldest daughter of King Alfonso II of Aragon and his queen, Sancha of Castile, though the year of her birth is not certain, with sources ranging from 1179 to 1184.

The fabulous crown of
Constance of Aragon,
Holy Roman empress,
photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeir 
After Alfonso's death in 1196, his eldest son, Pedro, succeeded him on the throne of Aragon. It was Pedro II who arranged his sister's marriage to Emeric, the king of Hungary, to whom Constance was wed about the year 1198.

The marriage had been promoted by Pope Innocent III--Emeric sought an alliance that would strengthen him against his younger brother Andrew's efforts to gain the crown of Hungary for himself. Pedro had been crowned in Rome by Innocent, and after swearing to defend the faith, was known as "Pedro, the Catholic," but it's not clear (at least to me) what he got out of the alliance with Hungary.

In any event, Constance's marriage to the king of Hungary did not last long. She gave birth to a son and heir, Ladislaus, probably in the year 1200, but by 1204, Emeric was dead.

While he lay dying, and in order to ensure his son's succession, Emeric had arranged for the boy's coronation, but the king made the colossal mistake of deciding that his brother, Andrew, would be a good regent for the child--despite the fact that he had imprisoned Andrew, who had continued his efforts to gain the crown of Hungary for himself. Emeric only released Andrew from confinement so that he could be his son's guardian and protect the kingdom for him. Right.

After Emeric's death and fearing for the safety of her son, Constance escaped from Hungary, taking Ladislas with her. She took refuge with Leopold of Vienna, her husband's cousin, who agreed to shelter her and the boy, despite Andrew's threats of invasion. But within months, Ladislas, the "king" of Hungary, was dead.*

Now in undisputed control of the crown, Andrew demanded the body of Ladislas be returned to Hungary. The boy was buried in the basilica at Székesfehérvár, and Duke Leopold sent Constance, the dowager queen, back to Aragon. Upon her return, Constance joined her mother the convent of St. Sigena, where she would remain for the next five years.

In 1208, King Pedro arranged a second marriage for his sister, this one to Frederick, who had been crowned king of Sicily when he was just three years old. Like all royal marriages, this one had political advantages for all parties as well--except, perhaps, for Constance.

Constance of Aragon's second husband was the son of Henry VI, Holy Roman emperor, and the Empress Constance, queen of Sicily in her own right. But since both of his parents were dead, Frederick, still a minor, was then in the guardianship of Innocent III. The pope hoped not only to promote the boy's interests but also to secure an alliance against a too-powerful empire.

Frederick needed powerful assistance in asserting his rights in southern Italy and, eventually, in securing the title of Holy Roman emperor for himself. An alliance with Pedro of Aragon would provide this support in the form of 500 knights to fight for Frederick in Sicily.

For his part, Pedro II of Aragon wanted the pope to annul his marriage to Marie of Montpellier so he could marry Maria of Montferrat, queen of Jerusalem. And so the king of Aragon was once again eager to agree to a proposal made by Innocent III.**

And so off the dowager queen of Hungary went to Sicily. On 15 August 1209, Constance, then between twenty-five and thirty years old, was married to the fourteen-year-old Frederick, king of Sicily and would-be emperor. Now queen of Sicily, Constance gave birth to a son, Henry, in 1211. 

Meanwhile, Otto IV, the current Holy Roman Emperor, had invaded Italy and been excommunicated by Innocent III. A rebellious group of German princes then elected Frederick as king of the Germans, and he headed off to war on the continent, leaving Constance as regent of Sicily. (She does appear to have joined her husband briefly in 1216.)

Although he was crowned as king in 1212, Frederick did not have widespread support until after Otto's defeat in 1214, and so he was elected king of Germans for a second time in 1215 and crowned in Aachen. Otto IV, the excommunicated emperor, died in 1218, and negotiations following his death--and the death of Innocent III--meant that Frederick did not become Holy Roman emperor until 1220.

During the years of her regency in Sicily, Constance defended the interests of her husband and son, working with the pope and supporting her brother's effort to extend his influence in the area that is now southwestern France. She confronted rebels, invaders, and the Muslim population.

When her husband was crowned Holy Roman emperor in Rome by the new pope, Honorius III, Constance was also crowned empress. Frederick returned to Germany while the new empress remained behind. Although Frederick was again in Sicily in 1222, he was occupied by a conflict with the saraceni della Sicilia and did not see Constance before she died in May of that year. 

Constance of Aragon, regent of Sicily and Holy Roman empress, is buried in the cathedral of Palermo.

The tomb of Constance of Aragon,
Cathedral of Palermo,
photo by José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro
The most easily accessible account of Constance of Aragon's life is by Norbert Kamp in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, available online by clicking here. (The same source includes a biographical essay on Frederick, so a few details of Constance of Aragon's life also appear there.) 

You might also be interested in Christopher Mielke's analysis of the elaborate jeweled regalia buried with Constance--his essay, "From Her Head to Her Toes: Gender-Bending Regalia in the Tomb of Constance of Aragon, Queen of Hungary and Sicily," is available by clicking here.

*Since he had been crowned on 26 August 1204 and died on 7 May 1205, Ladislas "ruled" as king of Hungary for six months and five days.

**Marie of Montpellier fought back against her husband's efforts to annul her marriage, and--despite Pedro's efforts--Innocent III ultimately refused to grant the annulment. But on her way back to Aragon in 1213, Marie, still queen of Aragon, died. Pedro II died a few months later, succeeded as king of Aragon by Jaume, his son with Marie of Montpellier.



Friday, July 17, 2020

Eunice Newton Foote, Scientist and Inventor

Eunice Newton Foote, scientist and inventor (born 17 July 1819)


Writing about Eunice Newton Foote as part of the New York Times "Overlooked No More" series, John Schwartz notes that her "ingenious experiment more than 150 years ago yielded a remarkable discovery that could have helped shape modern climate science had she not been overshadowed."
Eunice Foote's 1856 paper , published in
the American Journal of Science and the Arts

Could have, Schwartz says, because "the scientific paper she published that might have added her name to the pantheon of early climate scientists was quickly forgotten, and she faded into obscurity. There isn’t even a known photograph of her today."

Now, however, Eunice Newton Foote's name and her scientific observations have begun to gain recognition, as the "overlooked no more" obituary demonstrates. Better late than never?

Born in Goshen, Connecticut, Eunice Newton was the daughter of the wonderfully named "Isaac Newton." (He was actually "Isaac Newton Jr.," the son of a farmer named Isaac Newton, also from Goshen). Her mother's given name was Thirza (her surname is unknown). 

Together Isaac and Thirza Newton had eleven children and, at some point, Newton relocated from Goshen to East Bloomfield, New York. The family's fortunes rose and fell--at one point Isaac Newton seems to have become wealthy (due to his "large and bold" speculation), but at the time of his death, he "was much embarrassed with debt."

While nothing is known of Eunice Newton's childhood, records indicate that she was enrolled at the Troy Female Seminary from 1836 to 1838. While there, she seems to have attended science lectures at Rensellaer School, co-founded by Amos Eaton, a man dedicated to the belief that women should be educated in the sciences.

In 1841, Eunice Newton married Elisha Foote. The couple had two daughters, Mary, born in 1842, and Augusta, in 1844. 

Elisha Foote, a lawyer and inventor, had been trained in the law by Daniel Cady, the father of the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Elisha Foote practiced law and then became a judge in Seneca Falls, New York. It should be no surprise, then, that both Elisha and Eunice Newton Foote attended the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, signing the "Declaration of Sentiments." Along with Stanton, Eunice Foote prepared the proceedings of the convention for publication.

Signatories of the "Declaration of Sentiments,"
Seneca Falls Convention;
Eunice Newton Foote's name is fifth on the list
By 1856, Eunice Newton Foote had written a scientific paper that was accepted for presentation at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Through a series of experiments, she had demonstrated the effect of the sun on various gases, in the process discovering that carbon dioxide became hottest. She then theorized about the effect of these gases on the earth's atmosphere, concluding that “An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature.”

Though her paper had been accepted for presentation at the association's meeting, as a woman Foote was not able to present it herself. Instead her paper was read by Joseph Henry, director of the Smithsonian Institution.

About the "gender disparities" that were apparent in this arrangement, Leila McNeill writes:

At the meeting, Henry appended Foote’s paper with his own added preface: “Science was of no country and of no sex. The sphere of woman embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the true.” The introduction, intended to praise Foote, more than anything highlights her difference as a woman in a sea of men, indicating that her presence among them was indeed unusual and needed justification. Even Scientific American’s praise of Foote’s paper was included in a column two pages after the AAAS meeting report. Though both Henry and Scientific American seemed to see Foote as an equal in scientific endeavors, she was still kept separate from the fold.

In 1857, Foote published a second scientific paper, "On a New Source of Electrical Excitation," in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

In addition to her scientific experimentation, Foote received a patent for a rubber filling to improve the soles of boots and shoes (intended to "prevent the squeaking of boots and shoes"), and she developed a machine to improve paper making. 

According to a genealogical study of the Newton, Eunice Newton Foote was also a portrait and landscape painter

She died on 30 September 1888, just sixty-nine years old. 

For understanding Eunice Newton Foote's scientific achievement (and the reasons why her achievements were "lost"), I recommend Leila McNeill's Smithsonian essay, quoted above (click here) and John Perlin's "Foote-Note" on "the hidden history" of climate science (click here).

There is a short film, Eunice, available by clicking here. Also online is a presentation from the "Science Knows No Gender: In Search of Eunice Foote" symposium (UC Santa Barbara, 2018), particularly interesting for information about Foote's education, about Adam Eaton, and about the Troy Female Seminary (click here).

Update, 17 November 2021: As part of its "Retropolis" series, the Washington Post has just published another piece on the accomplishments--and disappearing--of Eunice Foote. Click here to read Gillian Brockell's "Did the 'father of climate science' steal his discovery from Eunice Newton Foote?" (The "Retropolis" series focuses on "the past, rediscovered.")

Update, 22 September 2022: This week's episode on the BBC's The Forum, hosted by the amazing Bridget Kendall, is "A Forgotten Founder of Climate Science: Eunice Newton Foote." To listen, click here.







Monday, May 25, 2020

On Paradise Row, a Mary Astell Mystery

On Paradise Row, a Mary Astell Mystery


After a career of writing history and literary criticism, I have turned my hand to fiction. My new novel, On Paradise Row, features the philosopher and writer Mary Astell as its main character. 

Of course, I haven't abandoned the historical research that was a part of my academic career and that continues here, in my posts on this blog. From the "Author's Note":
On Paradise Row is a work of fiction. Mostly.
The novel imagines a few weeks in the life of the seventeenth-century English philosopher and writer Mary Astell, who has been called the first English feminist. A quiet woman who spends her day in meditation and study, Astell is surprised by the sudden arrival of a young woman whose unwelcome presence interrupts her peaceful routine and challenges her calm certitudes.
To solve the problems created by this uninvited guest, Astell must negotiate not only the vast city of London but also the obstacles women face there. As she makes her way through the dirt and dangers of the crowded streets, she must also find a way through the social, political, and religious institutions designed by those who have little interest in, much less sympathy for, anyone who is not rich or powerful—and male.
While the story is entirely the product of my imagination, the novel’s plot incorporates many details and events drawn from the lives of real women who lived in late seventeenth-century England.

Mary Astell was well known in literary London, her person and her work both celebrated and satirized by her contemporaries. Today her most frequently read works are A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694) and Some Reflections upon Marriage (1700). In late 1696, when the events of this novel unfold, she had just come to live in a newly constructed terraced house on Paradise Row in the village of Chelsea.

Several of the other characters in the novel are also based on real women, Astell’s friends and acquaintances in Chelsea: Lady Catherine Jones, daughter of the earl of Ranelagh; Elizabeth King, the wife of the rector of All Saints Church; and Mary Methuen, whose sweet-smelling honeysuckle was admired and commented on by several of her neighbors, including Mary Astell.

Other characters include historical women whom Astell might have encountered as she went about her business in the city: the scandalous Hortense Mancini, duchess of Mazarin, who also resided on Paradise Row; Anne Tenison, wife of the archbishop of Canterbury, and her “faithful” attendant, Ann Stubbs; Mary Kettilby, author of A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physic, and Surgery, printed by Richard Wilkin, the bookseller who published many of Astell’s works.

Still others who make an appearance in On Paradise Row are women who were known in seventeenth-century London, but who were probably not the kind of women with whom Mary Astell would have had an acquaintance—outside the pages of a novel, that is. Among them are Gertrude Rolles, a successful milliner with a shop in the Royal Exchange; Mrs. Ball, the proprietor of a marriage house in the Fleet; and Elizabeth Wisebourne, a notorious brothel-keeper whose premises were on Drury Lane.

All of these women—Mary Astell, her friends, her neighbors, and her contemporaries—have left at least some evidence of their lives in London, and I have tried to make real characters out of the tantalizing bits of information that have survived.

For the lives of the other women whose stories are told here—disgruntled maidservants, working women, impoverished widows, and runaway apprentices—I have turned to a variety of sources, including witness depositions, criminal examinations, trial records, settlement and poor relief appeals, livery company records, wills, and other kinds of archival material. These female characters may be fictional, but the circumstances of their lives are real enough.
If you'd like to more about the history behind the fiction, I invite you to visit the novel’s companion website, On Paradise Row (click here). There you will find maps, portraits, a timeline of historical events, biographical details, and a variety of contextual materials. There are also links to copies of newspapers, like the London Gazette, to diaries and summaries of parliamentary debate, to legal proceedings and court reports, and to information about Chelsea in the late seventeenth-century.

I have spent years thinking and writing about Mary Astell. I’ve read her work with scores of students. I’ve walked the length of Paradise Row (now Royal Hospital Road), visited the Chelsea Physic Garden, and had my picture snapped while I was standing next to a sign reading “The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Astell Street, SW3”—in the photo, I am grinning like a madwoman. You might well conclude that I am little obsessed. 

And so I have a confession to make. Mary Astell hated “idle novels” and thought that reading them was not only a waste of time but would also lead “to the practice of the greatest follies.” I am sure she would despise On Paradise Row. I can only offer my apologies and, in my defense, say that it is a product of much love and admiration. 

To sample the opening chapters, click here.










Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Leonor Teles, "the Treacherous"

Leonor Teles, queen and regent of Portugal (married 5 May 1372)


History has not been kind to Leonor Teles. The nineteenth-century novelist Alexandre Herculano described her as "the Portuguese Lucretia Borgia," "a species of diabolic phantom, which appears wherever there is a deed of treachery, of blood, or of atrocity."

Leonor Teles, queen and regent,
from a family tree
of the kings of Portugal
(Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal)
The date of Leonor Teles's birth is not certain, but she was probably born about the year 1350, the daughter of Martim Afonso Telo de Meneses, a Portuguese nobleman, and Aldonça Anes de Vasconcelos, the daughter of João Mendes de Vasconcelos, alcalde (mayor) of Estremoz. 

By 1365, Leonor Teles had married João Lourenço da Cunha, lord of Pombeiro, with whom she had two children. But in 1371, while visiting her sister, Maria, at the Portuguese court, Leonor was introduced to the king, Fernando I--who promptly decided to marry her. 

That Leonor already had a husband proved to be no problem to the "weak, fickle" Fernando, "completely blinded by his folly." The husband was "easily convinced" to give up his wife and retire from the scene. Nor did Fernando let his own entanglements stop him--he had just signed a peace treaty with the king of Castile, promising to marry the king's daughter. 

Instead, ignoring the terms of the treaty of Alcoutim, Fernando married Leonor on 5 May 1372. Early in February of the next year, the new queen gave birth to a daughter, Beatriz. (Fernando would later attempt to ensure his daughter's legitimacy--and her ability to inherit his throne--by having Leonor's first marriage annulled.) In 1376, the Portuguese Cortes affirmed Beatriz as her father's heir. Two years later, in his will, Fernando disinherited his half-siblings, removing them from the line of succession. Leonor would give birth to a son in 1382 and another daughter in 1383, but neither survived.

After the marriage of her sister, Maria Teles, to João of Portugal, King Fernando's illegitimate half-brother, Leonor grew fearful of the couple. Despite the terms of Fernando's will, the popular João might claim the Portuguese throne in the case of Fernando's death. Conspiring with her brother, Leonor convinced João that Maria was unfaithful to him--the enraged and suspicious João stabbed Maria and fled the court. (While Leonor could never be forgiven for her perfidy, João was--he was soon reconciled with his half-brother, returned to court, and sought to amend his hopes to succeed to the Portuguese throne by marrying Beatriz . . . Eventually he realized his precarious position and retired to Castile.)

In addition to providing her husband with an heir--and securing her daughter's rights--Leonor assumed a role in government--a role that generated a great deal of discontent among the people. At the time of her marriage, Ferdinand granted her a large quantity of land, over which she exerted "supreme power," and with her husband, she played an influential role in politics and diplomacy, including the marriage of their daughter, Beatriz, to Juan I, king of Castile, on 17 May 1383. (Beatriz was ten, Juan was twenty-five years old, recently widowed, and the father of three children.)

The young Beatriz's marriage to the king of Castile would forestall any hope that João of Portugal might have of assuming the throne of Portugal. According to the terms of the marriage contract between Portugal and Castile, Leonor Teles was to assume the regency in the case of Fernando's death, maintaining the kingdom for her daughter. And so, when the Portuguese king died just months after his daughter's marriage, Leonor Teles became regent of Portugal, governing in the name of her daughter.

Immediately following Leonor's assumption of the regency, turmoil erupted. Among the many factions, one, fearing the power of Castile, pressured her to marry João of Aviz, the illegitimate son of Pedro I (and thus Ferdinand's half brother), who would assume the regency in her place, while another, principally the nobility supported the "pretensions" of the king of Castile. (Their opposition to Leonor seemed to be rooted in their view that a man widely believed to be her lover would become too powerful.) The peasants and merchants, meanwhile, fearful of the power of the Portuguese nobility and of the king of Castile, rose up in revolt.

Facing the prospect of losing control of Portugal and after the brutal assassination of her suspected lover, Leonor appealed to her son-in-law, the king of Castile, to come to her aid. According to a contemporary chronicler,
at the beginning of 1384, [the king of Castile] received a message from Leonor. . . . She asked him to come and so he did. . . . She gave him the fortresses of the town and renounced her rule in favor of the king, which according to the terms of his marriage contract, she had to hold until the king of Castile had a son with Beatri[z].
About Leonor's decision, the nineteenth-century historian Edward McMurdo makes this judgment:
But the desire of revenge dimmed her intelligence, otherwise so bright and penetrative, and she actually supposed that the King of Castille [sic] would undertake to avenge her injuries and return placidly to his own kingdom, leaving her in possession of the royal power. It was a line of thought perfectly inexcusable in a woman who on other occasions had manifested herself such a profound politician, but her whole dreams were now those of revenge. It was principally against Lisbon, whose inhabitants had so often affronted her, that she directed all her vials of bitter wrath.
The decision made, Leonor found that her son-in-law's assistance did not come without a cost: he asked that Leonor Teles renounce her regency, which she agreed to do. Juan of Castile immediately began referring to himself as João, por graça de deus, Rei de Castela, Leão, Portugal, Toledo e Galiza (John, by the grace of God, king of Castile, Leon, Portugal, Toledo, and Galicia)--no reference to the rights of his wife, Beatriz.

Although Leonor agreed to resign her regency, she soon regretted her decision and involved herself in a number of conspiracies, including one to assassinate Juan of Castile. Her plots did not succeed. Instead of regaining her throne, Leonor Teles was exiled from Portugal, sent to Tordesillas, and placed in the convent there. (Many royal women were imprisoned in the fortress of Tordesillas, with its "royal convent," useful for keeping "inconvenient" queens out of sight--Maria of Portugal, queen of Castile; Blanche of Bourbon, queen of Castile, and, most famously, Juana, queen of Castile and Léon, known forever as "la loca.")

Leonor never returned to Portugal. Her son-in-law could not force her to become a nun, but she remained in the Real Monasterio de Santa Clara de Tordesillas until his  death in 1390. 

Although she seems to have left the convent after King Juan's death, the last years of Leonor Teles's life are unclear--the year of her death is uncertain, and the place of her burial is unknown. She does not seem to have reconciled with her daughter.

Leonor's daughter Beatriz, titular queen of Portugal, died in 1420. Beatriz's legitimacy and right to the crown of Portugal seem to have been shadowed by the circumstances of her parents' marriage.

The funeral monument of Beatriz,
titular queen of Portugal,
 convento de Sancti Spiritus de Toro,
Zamora, Spain
Despite the pretensions of Juan of Castile, João of Aviz is regarded as the successor of Fernando, his reign as king of Portugal dated from 1385 until his death in 1433. (João of Aviz was another one of Fernando's illegitimate half brothers.)

There are many resources on the life and political role of Leonor Teles, but most of them are in Portuguese. A good place to start is with Isabel M. Garcia de Pina's Leonor Teles, uma mulher de poder? (There is a good introductory section in English.)

Dated but still useful (and in English!) is Edward McMurdo's History of Portugal from the Commencement of the Monarchy to the Reign of Alfonso III, which includes references to contemporary chronicle accounts of Leonor. 

For good measure, there's an extensive work on Beatriz that's also available online--César Olivera Serrano's Beatriz de Portugal, la pugna dinástica Avís-Trastámara






Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Saint Walpurga, Writer and Missionary

Saint Walpurga of Heidenheim (died 25 February 777/9)


Born in Devon, England, probably about the year 710, Walpurga was the daughter of Richard of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon chieftain under King Ine, and a noblewoman named Wuna, who seems to have died about the time of Walpurga's birth. (At some point, both of Walpurga's parents are recognized as saints--Saint Wuna's feast day is 7 February.)

A sixteenth-century portrait
of St. Walpurga
by the Master of Messkirch
In 720, Richard is convinced by his two sons--Walpurga's brothers (both of whom also become saints)--to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While preparing for this journey, Richard of Wessex decides to leave his daughter, then about eleven years old, in the care of the abbess of Wimbourne Abbey. According to some traditions, however, it is the girl herself who asks to be left in the abbey rather than with relatives.

Wimbourne was a double monastery, housing both monks and nuns who followed the Rule of St. Benedict under the direction of an abbess.* Walpurga spent twenty-six years at Wimbourne, where she received an excellent education. The nuns of Wimbourne were trained in Latin and at least some Greek, and they put their language study to use with both sacred texts and the work of the early Church Fathers. The abbey also specialized in producing manuscripts and fine needlework.

Walpurga's father never got to the Holy Land. He reached Rome, then traveled with his sons to Lucca, where he died. (Willibald, the older of Walpurga's brothers, completed the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, then went on to Byzantium, eventually returning to Italy to live as a monk in Monte Cassino. Winebald, the younger of the two brothers, stayed in Rome and entered a monastery).

In 737, Wuna's brother Winfrid (later St. Boniface) recruited both of his nephews to accompany him on a mission to Germany. His call for evangelizing eventually included women--evidently Boniface was the first to include women as missionaries. In 748, a group of nuns from Wimbourne, Walpurga among them, traveled to the Franks to undertake their missionary work.

As part of their successful mission, Willibald and Winebald founded the double monastery of Heidenheim in 752, with Winebald serving as abbot. Walpurga was established as the abbess, governing the nuns. After Winebald's death in 761, Abbess Walpurga became the head of the double monastery.

On 25 February 777 or 779 (accounts vary), Walpurga died and was buried at the monastery founded by her brothers, where she had lived for some twenty-five years. About a hundred years after her death, her remains were translated--that is, they were removed to the cathedral of Eichstatt (Bavaria), with the aim of interring her remains with those of her brother, Wllibald, who had been consecrated as bishop there.  According to tradition, the beasts pulling the cart with Walpurga's body stopped at a small church used by the canonesses at Eichstatt and refused to move further--so her relics were interred there. Later, a church was built in her honor.

Walpurgis Night (30 April) celebrates her feast day, 1 May, which commemorates her the arrival of her relics in Eichstatt and Walpurga's canonization.

An extended account of St. Walburga's life is Emmanuel Luckman's "St. Walburga: Medieval Nun, Free Woman," in Miriam Schmitt and Linda Kulzer's Women Monastics: Wisdom's Wellsprings.


*In this, Wimbourne Abbey might be compared to Hilda's Whitby.

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Back to the Future, Part 15: Here We Go Again

Back to the Future, Part 15: Here We Go Again


I've put off writing about this year's Global Gender Gap Report--I just didn't have the heart for it. But with today's publication by the CDC of "Maternal Mortality Statistics," I was reminded of something my son once wrote when he was forwarding a link to me: "Mom, here's more good news for the woman who loves bad news."

On to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Report 2020.* First, some good news: "This year the progress has not only been larger than in the previous edition, but also more widespread: out of the 149 countries and economies covered both this year and last year, 101 have improved their score and 48 have seen their performance unchanged or reduced."

But before we in the U.S. get too excited, the U.S. is among those countries that have seen their performance fall--the U.S. ranks 53rd (of 153 countries), down two spots from the last year's calculations. By way of contrast, our two nearest neighbors rank much higher, Canada at 19, Mexico at 25. 

The report examines four key areas in assessing gender: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment. Again, here's a bit of good news: "The time it will take to close the gender gap narrowed to 99.5 years in 2019. While an improvement on 2018 – when the gap was calculated to take 108 years to close – it still means parity between men and women across health, education, work and politics will take more than a lifetime to achieve." Yup, that's about as good as the news gets . . . 

While political "empowerment" is "on the rise," it remains the "the worst-performing dimension": "it will take 95 years to close the gender gap in political representation, with women in 2019 holding 25.2% of parliamentary (lower-house) seats and 21.2% of ministerial positions." 


At the same time, women's economic situation is still not showing improvement: "In contrast to this positive progress in the lofty world of leadership, women’s participation in the wider labour market has stalled and financial disparities are increasing."

And the disparities in political power and their economic situation are all the more distressing because women have reached parity (almost) in health and, most important, education: 


So, it will take only 99 years instead of 108 to close the gap . . . If you're a glass-is-half-full kind of reader, you may find something to cheer about in the full report.

I am not a glass-half-full kind of reader, however. (Nor am I a glass-half-empty reader--I'm a why-in-the-hell-are-there-only-two-glasses? kind of reader.) Even so, it took today's new maternal mortality statistics to knock me out of my funk. 

Perhaps the most shocking thing in the just-published CDC report** is that the National Center for Health Statistics has not published maternal mortality figures since 2007--yes, over a decade ago! Thirteen years without official data . . . It has taken all that time (well, since 2003, actually) for a new "coding method" that would allow the NCHS to "resume the routine publication of maternal mortality statistics."

The figures are not good: "The maternal mortality rate for 2018 was 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births, and the rate for non-Hispanic black women (37.1) was 2.5 to 3.1 times the rates for non-Hispanic white (14.7) and Hispanic (11.8) women."

As reporter Julia Beluz notes, "If you compare the CDC figure to other countries in the World Health Organization’s latest maternal mortality ranking, the US would rank 55th, just behind Russia (17 per 100,000) and just ahead of Ukraine (19 per 100,000)."

But whether there are "official" counts or not, it's not as if maternal mortality rates in the U.S. are a big secret--click here for a recent USA Today report, and here for the World Health Organization's Trends in Maternal Mortality: 2000 to 2017.



Update, 13 February 2020: As if the news about maternal mortality rates weren't bad enough, ProPublica reports that there are "gaping holes" in the research:
In order to come up with a number that allows the United States to be compared with other countries, the National Vital Statistics System was required to use the World Health Organization’s definition of maternal mortality: “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy … from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.” The global standard encompasses the traditional, acute, obstetric causes of maternal death — hemorrhage, infection, blood clots, strokes — but excludes “accidental or incidental” causes. . . 
The 42-day cutoff for calculating maternal mortality excludes many maternal deaths:
In the U.S., as many as 24% of pregnancy-related deaths are happening from 43 days to 365 days after delivery, according to a CDC report last fall. In Texas, the proportion is closer to 40%. Even the new NVSS data [see below, **] confirms an enormous number of such deaths. Hidden in its report is a calculation for late maternal mortality for 2018: an additional 277 deaths. That brings the CDC estimate for maternal deaths up to a year postpartum to a much higher figure than it reported in the official U.S. rate: a total of 935 lives lost.
Causes of maternal deaths that are not included in the CDC report include heart-related conditions (which is the leading cause of uncounted maternal deaths), accidental overdoses, suicide, complications that lead to the deaths of older mothers, and, most horrifically, homicide (a study co-authored by [Joia] Crear-Perry, of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, shows that in Louisiana, homicides were the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women from 2016-17).

In other words, "Since 2007, the government had held off on releasing an official estimate of expectant and new mothers who died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. It waited for the data to get better. But the new, long-anticipated number falls short."

For Nina Martin's piece in ProPublica, click here.

*In previous years, the December publication was dated for the year in which it was published. This year, instead of the report being titled "2019" when it was published on 17 December 2019, it was titled "2020." For my previous posts on the "report, click here (2016), here (2017), and here (2018). Rereading what I wrote in 2018, I said then that I "didn't have the heart" for a writing a whole post about it--talk about "back to the future"!!! 

**As if the gaps in this report were not enough (see "Update, 13 February 2020" note, above), the link to the report now (February 2021) takes you to "Resource Not Available. The page you requested cannot be found at this time. It may be temporarily unavailable or it may have been  removed or relocated. I’ve updated my links to take you to the original document, preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. As I've noted elsewhere in this blog, one real issue during the Trump administration has been ACCESSING IMPORTANT INFORMATION.