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1800 to 1810

1800

born

 ..... Catherine Esther Beecher .....  sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe.  She worked as an educator and reformer and founded schools for young ladies at Hartford in 1824 and at Cinncinnati and was also mainly responsible for the founding of the women's colleges in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1843 she published her - Treatise on Domestic Economy - in which she explained every aspect of domestic life from building a house and which included designs for plumbing to setting a table. This book was the beginning of household automation and a house without servants. Some of her other published works are - The Evils Suffered by American Women and Children (1846) and Women Suffrage (1871) on a movement she opposed. Although working for the education of women she believed that to improve their minds would only make them better wives and mothers. Her autobiography - Educational Reminiscences was published in 1874 and she died in 1878 

1803

born

..... Flora Tristan ..... French socialist whose father was a Peruvian-Spanish colonel and her uncle was President of Peru. However she was brought up in poverty in Paris by her widowed French mother. In 1821 she married Andre Chazel , her employer, but left him three years later. She could not get a divorce as this had been suppressed in France in 1816. For a few years she worked as a governess to an English family and in 1830 went to Peru in a vain attempt to persuade her uncle to support the family. Eight years later her husband was sentenced to 22 years hard labour for attempted murder. Her travels had given her strong socialist and feminist views and in 1843 she published her Union Ouvriére which is the first proposal for a Socialist International, advocating the uniting of all artisan clubs into a single international union and the establishment of educational and welfare centres on a co-operative basis as ' Workers Palaces'. Flora was a strong champion of women's rights to education and employment. She died of typhoid in Bordeaux in 1844 and the workers of the city collected funds for her tombstone which reads - Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Solidarité

1804

born 

..... Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin .....  French novelist who wrote under the pseudonym of George Sand. She had strong feminist ideals and believed that women should be able to enjoy the same kind of freedom as men. She often wore masculine clothing and was celebrated for her open affairs with such famous men as the poet De Musset and the composer Chopin. No lover ever left her, it was she who tired of the affair first and she made popular the theory that ' love as an end justifies any means'. In 1822 she married a country squire, Casir Dudevant, the union lasted eight years. In 1831 she left him and took their two children to Paris where she was determined to earn a living as a writer. With another writer she wrote two novels which were published under the name of Jules Sand and it was from this that George Sand was derived. Her first independent novel was Indiana in 1832 which dealt specifically with the role of women in marriage. Her next two novels were reflections of her own marital experiences. She became a follower of socialist and humanitarian ideals in the early 1840s and her books in this period were - Consuelo (1842) and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1843). Disillusioned by the 1848 revolution she returned to country living and died in 1876. Her biography Intimate Journal was published in 1929 …..  " Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy "

1805

 ..... Jane Marcet (1769-1858) anonymously published Conversations on Chemistry Intended More Especially For the Female Sex. It was one of the first ever introductory books, was sold in America and France and reprinted thirteen times. In 1837 when it became known that the author was a woman, the public could hardly believe it was true

born

..... Harriot Hunt .....  American doctor. At first she was a school teacher but when her sister Sarah became ill it led both of them to study anatomy and physiology with Dr and Mrs Mott. Their mother encouraged them and in 1835 they set up in practice. When Sarah married she withdrew from the practice and Harriot tried repeatedly to add a degree to her practical experience by applying to Harvard University. Finally she was accepted as a student along with three black students by the Dean, Oliver Wendell Holmes, but the other students rioted at these admissions, objecting to the 'sacrifice of her modesty' and she was forced to withdraw. In 1843 she organised a Ladies Physiological Society and in 1849 gave a free course of public lectures in Boston. She became interested in mental illness and tried to combat women's nervous diseases by helping them towards self-esteem. In 1853, 18 years after she had begun to practice, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania made her an honorary MD. She was also outspoken on women's and civil rights and for 20 years, when making her own tax payment, she sent her protest at not having the vote. Harriot was also a champion of women's rights to education and careers and spoke against slavery and racial inequality. She died in 1875

born

 ..... Fanny Mendelssohn .....  sister of Felix Mendelssohn and by whom she was largely overshadowed even though she was a superior musician and composer. Although he was encouraged in his musical career she was forbidden by their father to appear in public but nevertheless she developed into an incredibly accomplished musician. Some of her compositions were published in Felix's name. In 1829 she married and her husband encouraged her work and when her father died she performed in public for the first time. However her brother became opposed to her entry into public life and so she retreated once more. Finally, in 1846, a small number of her best works were published and the following year, the year of her death, she performed her last work

1806

born March 6th

..... Elizabeth Barrett Browning ..... eldest of the twelve children of Edward and Mary Moulton who became one of England's most popular poets.  She had a voracious appetite for learning and was educated alongside her brothers in both Latin and Greek and as a child wrote the epic poem Battle of Marathon which was published privately in 1819.  As a young girl she suffered a spinal injury and as a result of this a respiratory complaint occurred and she came to be regarded as an invalid. In 1838 her family moved to 50 Wimpole Street, London and this address became one of the most famous literary addresses in the world due to the success of the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street.  By this time she had virtually become a recluse and her health had deteriorated and this was not helped by her fathers overbearing and possessive attitude. By the mid-1840s however she had become a well known figure in the literary world. She became acquainted with the poet Robert Browning and they began to correspond. He admired her work and their friendship soon developed. He was convinced that her health would improve if she left her sickroom but her father forbade it. It was during these months that she wrote Sonnets from the Portugese. In 1846 she eloped with Browning and they went to live in Florence where their son was born three years later. Her health improved and they worked together writing poems.  Their fame increased but in time his work came to be rated more highly than hers. When she died in 1861 he returned to London and in the following year arranged for the posthumous publication of her Last Poems " if we tried to sink the past beneath our feet, be sure the future would not stand it "

born

..... Maria Weston Chapman .....  treasurer of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and editor of the Liberator in association with William Garrison. She also wrote many abolitionist articles. In 1832 she was co-founder of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and because of it suffered abuse, social ostracism and physical assault. She sponsored the publication of The Liberty Bell q.v. 1839-58 and also wrote The Life of Harriet Martineau (1877). From 1845-55 she lived in Europe but returned to Massachusetts to continue to work for the civil rights cause after the Civil War. She died in 1885

born

..... Sarah Rachel Russell .....  known as Madame Rachel she ran a famous beauty salon in which she promised everlasting youth and that wrinkles and other signs of age could be banished for ever to all who used her fabulous preparations, especially her magnetic rock water dew from the sands of the Sahara. This was eventually exposed as being made up of ordinary water and bran. Many gullible women in the 1860s found her claims quite irresistible and once they were trapped in her web she proceeded to strip them of their money and their reputations and to blackmail them with great cunning. Many dared not tell their husbands how foolish they had been. Fear of scandal was like a disease in Victorian England. Madame Rachel was born into a Jewish theatrical family and was first married to an assistant chemist in Manchester and then to Jacob Moses who was drowned when the Royal Charter sank in 1859. Her last husband was Philip Laverson. She was a clothes dealer at first and after adding procurement to her activities was jailed for a short term. In 1860 she began to sell cosmetics and toilet requisites and this new business was launched with a pamphlet entitled Beautiful for Ever. She offered customers about 60 preparations including her own special brand of face powder, naming one shade 'Rachel' and which is still used today usually by brunettes. She made many fantastic claims about her preparations but once again procuring, fraud and blackmail were added to her activities. She was arrested several times and finally in 1878 she was sentenced to five years imprisonment but died two years later in 1880

1807

born

..... Jane Digby .....  English aristocrat who shocked her upper class world by collecting and discarding husbands at an alarming rate before finally disappearing into the desert to marry a Bedouin sheik. She was a descendant of two extraordinary families - The Digbys whose line could be traced back to Edward the Confessor and the Cokes whose roots went back to King John and the Magna Carta. Her father was Captain Henry Digby, a hero of Trafalgar but it was the enormous wealth of her mothers family, the Cokes, that had built palatial Holkham Hall in north Norfolk where she spent her childhood. In 1824 a great ball was given in her honour and it was here that she met her first husband, Lord Ellenborough. He was twice her age and a widower and she was barely seventeen when they married. By the year 1856 she was married to her Arab sheik leaving three husbands still living, countless lovers and several children and had shocked her upper class family beyond belief. In this year she made one more journey home in the hope of being reconciled with her mother but English society found her new marriage too much to accept. After six months she kissed her mother goodbye for the last time and set off back to her new husband and his Bedouin tribe. She spent the rest of her life with him, sometimes in the desert, but mostly in a charming house he bought for her in Damascus and where she received many English visitors. She loved riding and on her 73rd birthday he bought her the most beautiful horse she had ever seen. A year latter in 1881 she fell ill with a virulent dysentery and died and was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Damascus. The grief-stricken Bedouin rode out to the desert and sacrificed his best camel to her memory

born

..... Mary Carpenter ..... in Exeter, England.  In 1846 she opened a ragged school in Bristol and a reformatory in 1852. Her book Juvenile Delinquents was published in 1853 and attracted a lot of attention. It resulted in a law being passed which allowed magistrates to send children to reformatories instead of to prison. She died in 1877

1808

England

..... on June 25th The Times newspaper remarked that even after the Lancashire weavers gained some concessions in their campaign for a minimum wage bill that there was still some unrest ….. "The women are, if possible, more turbulent and mischievous than the men. Their insolence to the soldiers and special constables is intolerable and they seem to be confident of deriving immunity from their sex." Demonstrations were continuing against employers who refused to pay rates fixed as fair by magistrates and there was little sex discrimination over prosecution in those involved. In September it was reported that Elizabeth Walmsley was arrested for breaking three shop windows with a big stick

born

..... Marie Felicia Malibran ..... famous French operatic singer who was born in Paris, the eldest daughter of Manuel and Josquina Garcia. At the age of eight she went to England where she lived for the next eight or nine years and acquired a knowledge of the English language which later enabled her to make a good impression on the English stage. Her father was a man with a brutal temper but he was a thorough musician and his treatment of his daughter was cruel and tyrannical. She was however, indebted to him for the cultivation of her genius and to the extent of her musical knowledge in which no vocal performer ever excelled her. She was under 17 years of age when she made her London debut in 1825. Several years later her father got into difficulties and she was forced to marry Monsieur Malibran, a merchant and banker of reputed wealth although he was more than double her age. The marriage was not a happy one, her husband having deceived her as to his circumstances. He was eventually made a bankrupt and thrown into prison. Marie returned to Europe and made her first appearance in Paris in 1828 having given up all her provisions of the marriage settlement to appease her husbands creditors. From then on she became the idol of the Parisian public. In 1836 she obtained a divorce from her husband, who, hearing of her success followed her and demanded a share of her money. She refused him. Soon afterwards she married the celebrated violinist Monsieur de Beriot. In September 1836 she went to Manchester in England to sing in the music festival and it was here that she became ill. Although she fainted repeatedly she refused to give in and was determined to carry out her performances. Her last performance was on the 14th September 1836 to tumultuous applause, animated cheering and hats and handkerchiefs being waved over the heads of the whole audience. It was a performance that has never been forgotten. She died nine days later

1809

born

..... Frances Anne Kemble ..... known as Fanny Kemble she was a member of a famous English stage family. In 1832 she went to America and acted for two years before retiring to marry Peirce Butler, owner of a Georgia plantation.  Her Journal of Frances Anne Butler ( 2 vols.1835) is a record of her theatrical tour and freely criticised many American customs. Her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation (1838-1839) was not published until 1863 when it was meant to influence British opinion against the South, whose slavery she detested. She left her husband in 1846 and returned to the London stage. Two years later she was involved in a notorious divorce suit. She died in 1893

1810

born

..... Louise Colet ..... one of the most celebrated Frenchwomen of her time who was a prolific writer, four times winner of the Académie Francaise's prize for a poem on a set theme, the muse and mistress of Flaubert and lover of many.  She was a liberal and a feminist and was proud of her independence as a self-supporting woman of letters. She devoted much of her energy to political crusades and was one of the few writers to side with the Communards in 1871. Colet had her fair share of hardship and struggled to maintain herself and her daughter when her husband vanished early on in their married life and she was rejected by her family. She died in 1876