Anne Knight (1786–1862) and the fight for women’s suffrage in the 1840s: political activism and multiple tactics
2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 33; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09612025.2023.2266132
ISSN1747-583X
Autores Tópico(s)Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment
ResumoABSTRACTSince the 1980s, British feminist advocate Anne Knight has been acknowledged for her pioneering role in women's suffrage propaganda. This article aims to rectify misinterpretations regarding Knight's contribution by re-evaluating her actions and materials during the 1840s. It argues that her significance lies in creatively deploying established tactics from various social movements and diverse texts to invigorate the women's suffrage cause, showcasing sustained commitment across diverse domains. This article is structured into four sections. Firstly, it provides a concise biography of Anne Knight, accompanied by an evaluation of previous studies. Secondly, by re-examining her feminist propaganda, it establishes that Knight's role as a creator of the material, rather than the original author, does not diminish her creativity but underscores strategic adaptability in media use and translating discourse into action. Thirdly, through an exploration of her writings and practices, this article investigates the divergence within women's suffrage activism in contemporary British society. Lastly, it delves into Knight's discourse and actions during the French Second Republic, revealing her distinctive role and the broader significance of women's collective struggle. In summary, this article unveils the intricate facets of Knight's pioneering role, offering a nuanced understanding of early Victorian Britain's women's suffrage activism.KEYWORDS: Anne Knightsuffragepropagandaactivismfeminism AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Man-Yi Chin, Chien-Hui Li, and Tsai-Yeh Wang for their comments and generous help in the development of this research. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to Sharon Crozier-De Rosa and the anonymous reviewers at Women's History Review for their invaluable insights and feedback on earlier drafts. Thanks also to Melissa Atkinson, Special Collections Curator at the Library of the Society of Friends for her assistance with the licensing documents. I am also grateful to the Department of History at National Taiwan University and the Women's and Gender Research Programme, whose scholarships funded the completion of this research.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Correction StatementThis article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.Notes1 Anne Knight, Annotated copy of 'A Plea for Woman by Mrs. Hugo Reid', in MS vol. s495, the Library of the Society of Friends, London (hereafter, 'LSF'), 95.2 For more discussion on the 'age of reform', see Joanna Innes and Arthur Burns, 'Introduction', in Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780–1850, ed. Arthur Burns and Joanna Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–2.3 See the next section for further discussion of feminist chronology.4 Nancy A. Hewitt, 'From Seneca Falls to Suffrage? Reimagining a "Master" Narrative in U.S. Women's History', in No Permanent Waves Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism, ed. Nancy A. Hewitt (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010), 32.5 For Knight's biography, see Gail Malmgreen, 'Anne Knight', in Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals, vol. 2, ed. Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Gossman (Hassocks, England: Harvester Press, 1979), 280–3; Elizabeth Crawford, 'Anne Knight', in The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866–1928 (London: Routledge, 2001), 327–8; Edward H. Milligan, 'Anne Knight', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 31, ed. H.C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 891–2.6 Scholars cited Gail Malmgreen's study on Anne Knight as the original author of the leaflets and labels, but did not re-examine the origins of the discourses. See Gail Malmgreen, 'Anne Knight and the Radical Subculture', Quaker History 71, no. 2 (Fall 1982): 100–13; Kathryn Gleadle, ed., Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850: An Anthology (Hampstead: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002), 190; Jad Adams, Women and the Vote: A World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 74; Lydia Murdoch, Daily Life of Victorian Women, The Greenwood Press Daily Life through History Series (California: Greenwood, 2014), 21; Lucy Delap, Feminisms: A Global History (London: Pelican, 2020), 142.7 Taylor dissects how Owen's socialist feminism centred feminist visions as a pivotal facet of social reform, while Gleadle delves into the community of radical unitarians, underscoring the ideological and social networks bequeathed to later feminist activists. See Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (London: Virago, 1983); Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women's Rights Movement, 1831–51, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan Press, 1998) (first published 1995).8 Barbara Caine, English Feminism, 1780–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 88; Barbara Caine, 'British Feminist Thought', in The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. W.J. Mander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 391. Lucy Delap's article, 'The "Woman Question" and the Origins of Feminism', adopts a chronologically anchored approach akin to Barbara Caine's. Unfortunately, it overlooks the early Victorian feminism, erroneously pegging 1866 as the beginning of the earliest women's suffrage organisations. See Lucy Delap, 'The "Woman Question" and the Origins of Feminism', in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-century Political Thought, ed. Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 334.9 Malmgreen, 'Anne Knight and the Radical Subculture', 100.10 Douglas H. Maynard, 'The World's Anti-slavery Convention of 1840', The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47, no. 3 (1960): 452–71; Donald R. Kennon, '"An Apple of Discord": The Woman Question at the World's Anti-slavery Convention of 1840', Slavery & Abolition 5, no. 3 (1984): 244–66; Kathryn Kish Sklar, '"Women Who Speak for an Entire Nation": American and British Women Compared at the World Anti-slavery Convention, London, 1840', Pacific Historical Review 59, no. 4 (1990): 453–99; Clare Midgley, 'Anti-slavery and Feminism in Nineteenth-century Britain', Gender & History 5, no. 3 (1993): 343–62.11 Alex Tyrrell, '"Woman's Mission" and Pressure Group Politics in Britain (1825–60)', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library (1980): 227–30; Sklar, '"Women Who Speak for an Entire Nation", 460.12 Bonnie S. Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement, 1830–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) (first published 2000).13 Kathryn Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 2.14 Ibid.15 Cecelia Walsh-Russo, 'Mutual Brokerage and Women's Participation in Nineteenth-century Anglo-American Abolitionist Movements', Social Movement Studies 16, no. 6 (2017): 633–46.16 Ibid.17 See note 6.18 Knight, Annotated Copy of 'A Plea for Woman by Mrs. Hugo Reid', in MS vol. s495, LSF.19 Malmgreen, 'Anne Knight and the Radical Subculture', 100; Gleadle, Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850, 190.20 This sermon was delivered in 1845, and the edition I have found to provide a comparison is the 4th edition of 1859, for the passage quoted by Knight see Samuel J. May, The Rights and Condition of Women; a Sermon, Preached in Syracuse, November, 1845, 4th ed. (London: Edward T. Whitfield, 1859), 6–8.21 Marion Reid, A Plea for Woman: Being a Vindication of the Importance and Extent of Her Natural Sphere of Action: With Remarks on Recent Works on the Subject (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), 48; Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1792), 3.22 Charles-Maurice de Talleyrant-Perrigord, Rapport sur l'instruction publique, fait au nom du Comité de Constitution à l'Assemblée nationale, les 10, 11 et 19 septembre 1791 (Paris: Des Imprimeries de Baudouin, 1791), 118.23 May, The Rights and Condition of Women, 4.24 Félicité Robert de Lamennais, De L'esclavage Moderne (Paris: Pagnerre, 1839).25 Félicité Robert de Lamennais, Modern Slavery, trans. William J. Linton (London: J. Watson, 1840), 29–32.26 For more on gender and Chartism, see most notably, Jutta Schwarzkopf, Women in the Chartist Movement (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1991).27 For a succinct summary of his positions, see Gleadle, Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850, 172.28 Reginald J. Richardson, The Rights of Woman Exhibiting her Natural, Civil, and Political Claims to a Share in the Legislative and Executive Power of the State (Edinburgh: J. Duncan, 1840), 10–4.29 Reid, A Plea for Woman.30 Ibid., 58.31 For a comprehensive study of the British tax system in the nineteenth century, see Martin Daunton, Trusting Leviathan: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).32 Matthew McCormack, Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688–1928 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019), 104–18.33 Even among the proponents of women's rights at the time, those who emphasised the link between taxation and women's suffrage tended to exclude married women from eligibility, such as Mary Smith, Samuel Bailey (1791–1870), and Richardson. Smith was one of the first women to petition Parliament for women's suffrage, arguing in the 1832 parliamentary reform debate that celibate women should have the franchise because they paid taxes. For Smith's arguments in favour of women's suffrage and the debate it provoked in Parliament, see Gleadle, Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850, 165–6. Bailey, a contemporary utilitarian political economist, supported the suffrage of widows and celibate women, see Gleadle, Radical Writing on Women, 1800–1850, 177–80. In Knight's notebook, Bailey's book The Rationale of Political Representation (1835) was referenced.34 When Reid referred to the context in which women were taxed on their purchases, she specifically mentioned 'excise taxes', which fall under the category of 'indirect taxes' and were levied on everyday consumer goods such as sugar, beer, coffee, and tea. Reid used 'excise taxes' as evidence of women's taxation, deliberately omitting discussion of 'income taxes' and 'land taxes', which were considered 'direct taxes'. This approach aimed to link taxation to consumption activities in which women were directly involved, as consumption expenditure is not entirely limited by marital status, as opposed to direct taxes such as income or property ownership. For details of research on direct and indirect taxes, see Daunton, Trusting Leviathan, 37.35 Cited in Helen Blackburn, Women's Suffrage: A Record of the Women's Suffrage Movement in the British Isles, with Biographical Sketches of Miss Becker (London: Williams & Norgate, 1902), 19.36 Matilda Ashurst Biggs and Knight were both veterans of the British abolitionist movement, and both were among the few British activists to support the representation of American women abolitionists at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Jonathan Spain, 'Matilda Ashurst Biggs', vol. 5 of Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 701.37 David Jones, 'Women and Chartism', History 68, no. 222 (1983): 2.38 Delap, Feminisms, 144.39 George Jacob Holyoake, 'Hints to the Advocates of the Rights of Women', The People's Press, and Monthly Historical Newspaper I, no. 4 (May 1847): 117–21; no. 5 (June 1847): 154–8.40 Ibid., 117–21.41 Ibid., 154–8.42 Ibid., 155–8.43 Anne Knight, 'The Rights of Women', The People's Press, and Monthly Historical Newspaper I, no. 9 (October 1847): 269–70.44 Ibid.45 Gleadle, The Early Feminists, 83–5.46 Holyoake, 'Hints to the Advocates of the Rights of Women', 155.47 Knight, 'The Rights of Women', 269–70.48 For more research on the exclusion of American women delegates at the convention, see note 10.49 Catherine Barmby, 'The Cause of Woman', The People's Press, and Monthly Historical Newspaper I, no. 10 (November 1847): 302.50 Ibid.51 Catherine Barmby, 'Reply to Anne Knight', Some Account of the Progress of the Truth as it is in Jesus, no. 31 (1844): 39 quoted in Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem, 55.52 George Jacob Holyoake, 'The Woman's Journal', The People's Press, and Monthly Historical Newspaper I, no. 11 (December 1847): 335.53 Charlotte Sturge, Family Records (London: Abraham Kingdon for private circulation, 1882), 9.54 'Anne Knight, a Woman's Pioneer', in The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions: 1884, ed. Janet Horowitz Murray and Myra Stark (New York; London: Garland, 1985), 11.55 Anthony Nicholas Foggo, 'The Radical Experiment in Liverpool and Its Influence on the Reform Movement in the Early Victorian Period' (PhD diss., University of Liverpool, 2015), 230–1.56 McCormack, Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688–1928, 106.57 The Society was founded in 1849 by the reformers Joshua Walmsley, Richard Cobden, and Joseph Hume (1777–1855). It sought to massively expand the franchise and achieve secret ballots, spread education, eliminate monopolies, promote commercial freedom, and abolish stamp duty and content censorship. For further discussion of the Society, see Foggo, 'The Radical Experiment in Liverpool and Its Influence on the Reform Movement in the Early Victorian Period', 204–12.58 'Anne Knight, A Woman's Pioneer', 11.59 Foggo, 'The Radical Experiment in Liverpool and Its Influence on the Reform Movement in the Early Victorian Period', 209.60 For more detailed research on the action tactics of contemporary social movements, see Betty Fladeland, '"Our Cause Being One and the Same": Abolitionists and Chartism', in Slavery and British Society 1776–1846, ed. James Walvin (London: Macmillan, 1982), 84–6; Clare Midgley, Women against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870 (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2005) (first published by Routledge, 1992), 148; James Heartfield, The British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society, 1838–1956: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 60–1.61 From the 1780s, when British women became involved in the abolitionist movement, there were no independent women's associations until 1825, and no independent petitions until 1830 onwards. For ground-breaking research on this subject, see Midgley, Women against Slavery, 43–50, 62–70.62 Ian Haywood, 'Encountering Time: Memory and Tradition in the Radical Victorian Press', in Encounters in the Victorian Press: Editors, Authors, Readers, ed. Laurel Brake and Julie F. Codell (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005), 70.63 Gleadle, The Early Feminists, 82–6.64 Anne Knight, printed letter to Richard Cobden, M.P., 13 August 1850, in Tracts, vol. O, folder 229–230, LSF quoted in Anderson, Joyous Greetings, 15.65 Cited in Karen Offen, 'Women and the Question of "Universal" Suffrage in 1848: A Transatlantic Comparison of Suffragist Rhetoric', NWSA Journal 11, no. 1 (1999): 150–1.66 For more details on the revolution, see Maria Tamboukou, Sewing, Fighting and Writing: Radical Practices in Work, Politics and Culture (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016), 203–5.67 It is noted that women were involved in demonstrations as well as alleyway guerrillas, see Anderson, Joyous Greetings, 155–6.68 During the 1830s, the Saint-Simonian feminists were actively advocating for gender equality based on the recognition of inherent differences between the sexes. Their demands encompassed various aspects, including equal treatment in marriage, sexuality, working conditions, and political rights. This set them apart from both the French Revolutionary feminists, like Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793), who advocated for equality based on the common rationality and similarity of all human beings, and the non-feminist members of the Saint-Simonian movement. Despite sharing critiques of capitalism and the call for the emancipation of the working-class men and women, the latter did not prioritise women's rights and denied women equal power within their organisations. For a more comprehensive exploration of this topic, see Claire Goldberg Moses and Leslie W. Rabine, Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 17–84.69 Offen, 'Women and the Question of "Universal" Suffrage in 1848', 151.70 Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: Les Femmes Électeurs et Éligibles (Paris: impr. J. Dupont, 1848). For English translation, see Offen, 'Women and the Question of "Universal" Suffrage in 1848', 163.71 For more discussion on difference but equality, see Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984); Claire Goldberg Moses and Leslie W. Rabine, Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism.72 Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century, 132–4.73 Bonnie S. Anderson, 'The Lid Comes Off: International Radical Feminism and the Revolutions of 1848', NWSA Journal 10, no. 2 (1998): 3.74 'Anne Knight, a Woman's Pioneer', 10.75 La Voix des Femmes, no. 24 (samedi 15 avril 1848), 3.76 Ibid.77 The structure has a tendency to repeat and reinforce established power relations, see Pierre Bourdieu, 'Social Space and Symbolic Power', Sociological Theory 7, no. 1 (1989): 21.78 Jeanne Deroin, Lettre d'une femme à M. Athanase Coquerel (Paris: Imprimarie de Lacour, 1848); Anne Knight, Au Pasteur Coquerel (Paris, 1848). For English translation, see Susan G. Bell and Karen M. Offen, eds., Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, vol. 1 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983), 250–51.79 Athanase Coquerel, 'Rapport (Projet de decret sur les clubs) par le citoyen Athanase Coquerel-Seance du 22 juillet 1848'. Assemblee constituante, 1848–1849. Impressions, III, no. 252: 9. For English translation, see Bell and Offen, Women, the Family, and Freedom, vol. 1, 249.80 According to Joan Scott, a paradox is a view that challenges the prevailing doxa, is contrary to the accepted tradition, and marks a conflict with the dominant position through its difference from it. See Joan Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 4.81 Lars Schmitt, 'Bourdieu Meets Social Movement', in Social Theory and Social Movements: Mutual Inspirations, ed. Jochen Roose and Hella Dietz (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2016), 69.82 Karen Zivi, 'Politics is Hard Work: Performativity and the Preconditions of Intelligibility', Philosophy & Rhetoric 49, no. 4 (2016): 441.83 Anne Knight, Letter to Lord Brougham, Result of an Interview at Meurice's Hotel, Paris, 4th month 14, 1849 (Holborn: Johnson & Co. Printers), in Tracts, vol. O, f. 229–230, LSF quoted in Malmgreen, 'Anne Knight', 282.84 Ibid.85 For a more comprehensive study of Deroin's campaign, see Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer, 82–4; Tamboukou, Sewing, Fighting and Writing, 158–9.86 See note 83.Additional informationNotes on contributorsTien-Yuan ChenTien-Yuan Chen holds an MA in History from National Taiwan University, specialising in nineteenth-century British history, women's and gender history, and reading history. She is currently exploring potential PhD programmes and research topics related to the intricate global history of women's rights concepts and movements.
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