Panel at Twelfth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, June 9, 2002
Professor Anderson's paper: "Ernestine Rose as International Citizen"
Ernestine Rose served as a link among women's rights activists on both sides of the Atlantic; she insisted that the movement for women's rights was cosmopolitan, not limited to one nation. Bonnie S. Anderson speaking on "Ernestine Rose as International Citizen," argued that Rose's internationalism grew out of her socialism, her belief that "Humanity's children are…all one and the same family," with ties and sympathies that override those of national identity or class. Rose's European network of women's rights reformers often included women who were freethinkers and socialists as well as feminists, while her U.S. network of feminists were nearly all Protestant Christians. With a Jewish identity largely forced on her by anti-Semitism, Professor Anderson argued that Rose's atheism was far more powerful a factor than her Jewish origins in alienating her from other American reformers. Paulina Wright Davis, allied with Rose since the petition campaign of the 1840s for married women's property rights, in 1854, "regretted" Rose's atheism "for her own sake, and for the good she might otherwise accomplish."
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The Life and Legacy of Ernestine L. Rose (1810-1892): Secular Jew; Women's Rights and Human Rights Activist; International Socialist
Ernestine L. Rose was one of the earliest to speak on women's rights in America, beginning in the mid 1830s. By 1850, she was the most celebrated orator on women's rights reform. Yet, she has been nearly forgotten by historians and the public. Born in Poland, the daughter of a rabbi, Ernestine, at sixteen, rebelled against an arranged marriage, successfully argued in court to retain her inheritance, and used it to leave home and find others who shared her ideals. After a year in Berlin, and six years in England, she emigrated to America where, for over thirty years, she spoke, lobbied, and petitioned for human rights reforms before returning to England in 1869. Why Rose became marginal to the movement she founded and its history, and why she chose, in 1869, to leave America where she had her strongest influence is a puzzle.
An entire panel at the Twelfth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women was devoted to the life and contributions of Ernestine L. Rose (1810-1892). Convened and chaired by Paula Doress-Worters, a Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Resource Center of Brandeis University, and founder of the Ernestine Rose Society, the panel featured four distinguished scholars who serve on the Advisory Board of the Society. Each of the panelists addressed an aspect of Rose's life and thought, and the reasons underlying her increasingly marginal position in the women's rights movement that she helped to found, and in the history of that movement.
The first speaker was Ellen Carol DuBois, Ph.D. Professor DuBois is a noted expert on the American Woman Suffrage Movement. She is the author of several books including Harriet Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage, Yale University Press, 1997 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches. New York: Schocken, 1981. The latter includes a diary entry by Anthony about Rose. DuBois is a Professor of History at the University of California at Los Angeles. Click here to read highlights of Professor DuBois' paper, "The Jewish Dimension of Ernestine Rose's Biography and Contribution to Women's Rights."
The next speaker was Carol A. Kolmerten, Ph.D. Professor Kolmerten is the author of the only modern biography of Ernestine Rose, "The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose", Syracuse University Press, 1999. Kolmerten is a Professor of English at Hood College, Frederick, MD. Click here to read highlights of Professor Kolmerten's paper, "European Socialism: the American Dream of Ernestine Rose."
The third and last speaker was Bonnie Anderson, Ph.D. Professor Anderson is the author of Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement, 1830-1860, Oxford University Press, 2000, which traces the connections between American and European reformers in the 19th century. Anderson is a Professor of History at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. Click here to read highlights of Professor Anderson's paper, "Ernestine Rose as International Citizen."
The synergy and contradictions among the papers sparked a spirited discussion of whether the prejudice Rose faced was primarily due to her Jewish origins, to her professed atheism, or to other factors. Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, the commentator, cited Sartre's observation that a Jew is one who is taken for a Jew (whether that person practices Judaism or not), yet she supported the view that Rose's atheism, socialism, and internationalism were more salient factors in her marginal status. Indeed, anti-Semitism and nativism were on the rise, and Rose was the only non-Christian among the reformers. Yet atheism was as much beyond the pale in 19th century America as it is today.
Does it matter to us today whether Rose was isolated in the reform movements due to her atheism, her foreign birth, her socialism or her atheism? Today, in our social reform movements, we seek diversity of race, religion, and national origin. Yet, atheism is still beyond the pale; few modern activists seek to bring the issue forward, knowing it will undercut their effectiveness. Thus, this issue is still relevant, for in a nation that guarantees freedom of religion in its Bill of Rights, the freedom not to practice a religion must be protected as much as the freedom to practice a religion of one's choice.
The panel, with its multiplicity of perspectives demonstrated vividly and persuasively that if we want to know more about the origins of the women's rights movement, the anti-slavery debates, the position of Jews, or atheists, or articulate women in the 19th century, we need to know more about Ernestine L. Rose.
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