Ernestine Rose
Ernestine Rose | |
---|---|
Civil Rights Atheist feminism | |
Spouse | William Ella Rose |
Ernestine Louise Rose (January 13, 1810 – August 4, 1892)
Early life
She was born on 13 January 1810 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Duchy of Warsaw, as Ernestine Louise Potowska.[2] Her father was a wealthy rabbi. Unusual for the time, she was educated and learned Hebrew.[2] There is no information about her mother. At the age of five, Rose began to "question the justice of a God who would exact such hardships" as the frequent fasts that her father performed. "I was a rebel at the age of five."[8] As she grew older, she began to question her father more and more on religious matters. He told her, "A young girl does not want to understand the object of her creed, but to accept and believe it."[8] She later said that she dated her disbelief and women's rights principles from that event.
When she was sixteen her mother died and left her an inheritance. Her father, without her consent,
Rose then traveled to Berlin, where she found herself hampered by an anti-Semitic law that required all non-Prussian Jews to have a
England and the United States
She traveled to
In May 1836 the Roses emigrated to the United States, where they later became naturalized citizens and settled in a house in New York City in 1837. The Roses soon opened a small "Fancy and Perfumery" store in their home, where Rose sold her perfumed toilet water and William ran a silversmith shop.
Abolitionist, atheist, feminist, suffragette
Rose soon began to give lectures on the subjects that most interested her, joining the "Society for Moral Philanthropists" and traveling to different states to espouse her causes: the abolition of slavery, religious tolerance, public education, and equality for women. Her lectures were met with controversy. When she was in the South to speak out against slavery, one slaveholder told her he would have "tarred and feathered her if she had been a man."[2] When, in 1855, she was invited to deliver an anti-slavery lecture in Bangor, Maine, a local newspaper called her "a female Atheist... a thousand times below a prostitute." When Rose responded to the slur in a letter to the competing paper, she sparked off a town feud that created such publicity that, by the time she arrived, everyone in town was eager to hear her. Her most ill-received lecture was likely in Charleston, West Virginia, where her lecture on the evils of slavery was met with such vehement opposition and outrage that she was forced to exercise considerable influence to get out of the city safely.[9]
In the 1840s and 1850s, Rose joined the "pantheon of great American women," a group that included such influential women as
In the winter of 1836, Judge Thomas Hertell submitted a married women's property act to the New York State Legislature to investigate methods of improving the civil and property rights of married women, and to allow them to hold real estate in their own name. When Rose heard of this resolution, she drew up a petition and began to solicit names in support of it. In 1838, this petition was sent to the state legislature in spite of having five signatures. This was the first petition ever introduced in favor of rights for women. During the following years, she increased both the number of petitions and the number of signatures. In 1849, these rights were finally won.[2]
Rose also attended and spoke at numerous conferences and conventions, including, but not limited to the
Rose was elected president of the National Women's Rights Convention in October, 1854, in spite of objections that she was an atheist. Her election was heavily supported by Susan B. Anthony, who declared that "every religion – or none – should have an equal right on the platform."
Although she never seemed to attach great importance to her Jewish background, in 1863 Rose had a published debate with Horace Seaver, the abolitionist editor of the Boston Investigator, whom she accused of being antisemitic.[2]
In 1869, she successfully lobbied for legislation in New York that allowed married women to retain their own property and have equal guardianship of children.[2]
In her later years, after a six-month trip to Europe, she attempted to stay away from platforms and controversy. However, within 6 months, she made the closing address at the nationwide Women's Rights Convention. Her health once again took a downward turn, and on June 8, 1869, she and her husband set sail for England. Susan B. Anthony arranged a farewell party for them, and the couple received many gifts from friends and admirers, including a substantial amount of money.
After 1873, her health improved, and she began to advocate women's suffrage in England, even attending the
References
- ISBN 9780671322113.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Ernestine Rose". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2018-03-25.
- ISBN 9780761873426.
- ISBN 9780199756247.
- JSTOR 4289820.
- .
- ^ "Rose, Ernestine Louise Potowski". National Women’s Hall of Fame.
- ^ a b c d e American Atheists (2008). "Ernestine Rose: A Troublesome Female". Archived from the original on November 20, 2010.
- OCLC 2735604.
Sources
Primary sources
- Mistress of Herself: Speeches and Letters of Ernestine Rose, Early Women's Rights Leader, Paula Doress-Worters, ed. Feminist Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-5586-1543-4
- History of Woman Suffrage Vol 1. (Internet Archive)
Secondary sources
- Lazarus, Joyce B. (2022). Ernestine L. Rose: To Change a Nation, Hamilton Books, Lanham, Maryland, ISBN 978-0-7618-7342-6
- Jacoby, Susan (2005). Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, "Lost Connections: Anticlericalism, Abolitionism, and Feminism." Henry Holt And Company, New York, ISBN 0-8050-7776-6
- "Great Minds Ernestine L. Rose: Freethinking Rebel", Carol Kolmerten, Summer, 2002, (Volume 22, No. 3), p53-55, Free Inquiry
- Kolmerten, Carol (1998). The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose. Syracuse University Press, ISBN 0-8156-0528-5
- Anderson, Bonnie S. (2017) The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter: Ernestine Rose, International Feminist Pioneer. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-975624-7
- Davin, Anna (2002). "Honouring Ernestine Rose, London, 1 and 4 August 2002". History Workshop Journal (54): 276–277. ISSN 1363-3554.
Further reading
- Yuri, Suhl (1990). Ernestine L. Rose: Women's Rights Pioneer. New York: Biblio Press. ISBN 0-930395-09-3