Month: June 2012

The Sex Question

Joshua King Ingalls in “The Woman’s Tribune” (1888–1894)

June 28, 2012
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Joshua King Ingalls (1816 – 1898) [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] An Open Letter. Away out in Idaho a fellow-traveler asked the writer the meaning of her badge, and when told he replied: “Oh, I thought it meant that you belong to the party that want to put God in the Constitution.” This is but an illustration of a wide spread fear engendered by terms used by the W. C. T. U. at their conventions. And because this fear, or vague sentiment exaggerated and embodied by prejudice into a tangible danger, does exist, the Tribune […]
Contr'un

Proudhon’s “Catechism of Marriage”

June 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of Proudhon’s “Catechism of Marriage,” from the fourth volume of Justice in the Revolution and in the Church. It’s strange stuff, and unappealing in a variety of ways, but I think it is relatively clear what Proudhon is up to—and where he goes wrong.
Contr'un

P.-J. Proudhon, “Catechism of Marriage”

June 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
CATECHISM OF MARRIAGE [from Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, New Edition, Vol. IV] Question. — What is the conjugal couple? Answer. — Every power of nature, every faculty of life, every affection of the soul, every category of the intelligence, needs an organ, in order to manifest itself and act. The sentiment of Justice can be no exception to that law. But Justice, which rules all the other faculties and surpasses liberty itself, not being able to have its organ in the individual, would remain for man a notion without efficacy, and society would be impossible, if […]
Working Translations

Frédéric Tufferd, “Unity in Socialism” (1887)

June 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s always fun to be able to add a new name to the list of historical mutualists, and particularly so when the new name comes with articulate writings. Frédéric Tufferd (or Teufferd) is one of those names I have encountered in the lists of French political exiles in the U. S., and as one of the editors of the Bulletin de l’Union républicaine de langue française and Le Socialiste (organs of the French internationalists in the the U. S.), and an associate of Claude Pelletier, Jules Leroux, etc. I hadn’t had a chance to read any of his work until […]
poetry

Eugène Pottier, “Already!” (dedicated to Paule Mink)

June 21, 2012
ALREADY! Eugène Pottier To the citizen Paule Mink. At the break of day, the snow falls, Swirled by the air; A sheet of dove’s feathers Covers the deserted cobblestones. I soon passed that way again, Where wheels and men’s feet floundered; No more snow, alas! but slush!             Already! Was she yet fifteen? Certainly not! Not yet, but at the same time old. With a great tint to her face, But nothing of youth or spring. The dazed look in her eyes Told what vulture gnawed at her; I could sense the corpse in her,             Already! She was filthy […]
The Sex Question

Jenny d’Héricourt, “Appeal to Women” and “Profession of Faith”

June 20, 2012
[I’ve been working on an anthology of Jenny P. d’Héricourt’s works, combining her two-volume Woman Affranchised with an assortment of other works of feminist philosophy. d’Héricourt was, of course, one of Proudhon’s opponents on the question of women’s rights, and her response to him makes up an important part of the first volume of Woman Affranchised, but the second volume (about two-thirds of which was not included in the existing English translation) shows her as an accomplished social thinker and activist. I’ve been revising and completing the translation of the first volume of that work, and hope to have at […]
Proudhon Library

Eugène Stourm, “God, Women and Proudhon”

June 20, 2012
[Slowly, but surely, I’m assembling the various feminist responses to Proudhon. The pages of L’Opinion des Femmes is rich with that sort of thing, since it was Jeanne Deroin’s primary forum at the time she proposed herself for political office, and drew fire from Proudhon and others. In the May, 1849 issue, the following essay, by Eugène Stourm, appeared. I think it’s an interesting mix of fairly accurate critique and misunderstanding. Certainly, the more details emerge, the more interesting the conflict looks. I think this project is going to be a lot of fun.] God, Women, and Proudhon. The enemies […]
Proudhon Library

Désirée Gay in “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

June 20, 2012
[These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before the launch of the official “First Year” of the paper. That issue had been preceded by a 4-page “Prospectus,” written by Jeanne Deroin, and the paper was essentially a continuation of La Politique des Femmes, but there was still a certain amount of work to do setting the tone for the project, and Gay seems to have taken on much of that work in the […]
Contr'un

Black and Red Feminist History

June 20, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve set up a separate blog to archive the Black and Red Feminist History project, and have begun to gather a mix of familiar and new material, including a working translation of Paule Mink’s 1891 essay on “The Right of Abortion.” I hope to have the third issue of the Black and Red Feminism zine available for the August shows, and it is tentatively a themed issue, focusing on “utopian socialism,” with contributions from the Saint-Simonian, Icarian and Fourierist movements.
translations

Paule Mink, “The Right of Abortion” (1891)

June 19, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Numerous, very sensational trials for the crime of suppression of children have taken place from the month of August 1891, to the same month in 1892, during one whole year, which we could call the year of abortions. In all the countries of Europe, in Russia, German, England, and France, and everywhere women have been prosecuted, and trials have been brought on these serious grounds. In Russian Poland, twelve women were arrested, and twenty were condemned in London, and in France we have had various legal actions for these heinous acts in Paris, Lyon, Béziers, and Villeneuve-les-Avignon — where the mayor, an imitator of Fourroux, aborted his dear constituents whom he had put at risk — and then that appalling affair in Clichy, in which 53 defendants were brought to the benches of infamy

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