Bonnie S. Anderson - The Rabbis Atheist Daughter

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Anderson, Bonnie S., author.

Title: The rabbis atheist daughter : Ernestine Rose, international feminist pioneer / Bonnie S. Anderson.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016014651 (print) | LCCN 2016014997 (ebook) | ISBN 9780199756247 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190626389 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190626396 (Epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Rose, Ernestine L. (Ernestine Louise), 18101892. | Women social reformersUnited StatesBiography. | FeministsUnited StatesBiography. | FeminismUnited StatesHistory19th century. | Womens rightsUnited StatesHistory19th century.

Classification: LCC HQ1413.R6 A53 2016 (print) | LCC HQ1413.R6 (ebook) | DDC 305.42092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014651

For Luise Eichenbaum, who helped me follow the buds of desire

MY INTEREST IN Ernestine Rose began when I read Yuri Suhls engaging biography of her in the 1970s. collection of Roses speeches and letters sparked my desire to write my own biography of her. A dinner party of encouraging feminists at Ann Snitows house ratified this desire. Thanks to my editor, Susan Ferber, for supporting this project throughout the years and to Maya Bringe, my wonderful production manager. Thanks also to Patterson Lamb, the best copy editor Ive ever had.

Research took me many places, first to Poland. Thanks to my friend John Graney, MD, for accompanying me there and also for trying to diagnose Ernestine Roses illnesses. In Poland, I traveled to Roses birthplace of Pitrkow Trybunalski and did research in Warsaw. Thanks to Agnieszka Klimek, who searched for and translated documents for me, and Magorzata Witecka, archivist at the Warsaw Central Archives of Historical Research. Additional Polish research and translation was done by Violetta Wiernicka and Lukas Chelminski. Thomas Breitfeld of the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Amy Hackett, and Dana Strohscheer helped me with her years in Germany. Regina de Bruijn-Boot and H. J. de Muij-Flenike of the Dutch National Archives in The Hague investigated the account of her alleged time in the Netherlands. In France, my Lyon friend, Claudette Fillard, read every chapter and provided many helpful comments. Nadia Malinovich, my dear relation who is also a historian, educated me in her field of Jewish history, as well as reading and commenting on the sections dealing with Judaism. Sandi Cooper, my colleague at CUNY for many years, let me read her copy of the 1878 Paris peace conference, which I had had trouble finding. In England, Sophie Stewart, archivist at the Co-operative College, Holyoake House, in Manchester, which holds the Robert Owen Papers, was helpful both online and in person. Penny Tinkler enlivened my Manchester stay. Both Jane Rendall and Rebecca Probert helped me with important background material when we met at a German conference in 2011.

The bulk of my research was done in the United States. Thanks to John C. Johnson at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center of Boston University, which houses the Yuri Suhl Papers; Vicki Catozza of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland for information on Lemuel Barnard; Henry F. Scannell, curator at the Boston Public Library; Nicholas Noyes, collections librarian, and Tiffany Link, research librarian, at the Maine Historical Society in Portland for help with the Boston Investigator. Two years of its run are missing from the online version but available in Portland. Thanks also to Henrietta Larou and Belle Graney for housing me during a Maine blizzard. Thanks to Linda Madden at the Mason Library of Keene State College, New Hampshire, for the Herald of Freedom; Dean M. Rogers, in Special Collections at the Vassar College Library for both Roses letters to C. H. Plummer and her speech at the 1871 Robert Owen Centenary; the staff at the University of Michigan Special Collections for Roses 1879 letter to the Conways, and the staff at the Chicago Historical Society/Chicago History Museum for Roses 1880 letter to Stanton. I did additional primary research at the New York Public Library, the New York Historical Society, Stirling Memorial Library at Yale University, and the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. All the librarians at those institutions were extremely helpful.

The most helpful librarian of all, however, was Professor Helen Georgas of the Brooklyn College Library, who educated me in databases, solved knotty research issues, and cheered me on throughout this project. Thanks also to my former student Marianne LaBatto, Brooklyn College Archivist. She and her helpful staff provided much support, especially in the use of their still-functioning microfilm reader/printer. Jahongir Usmanov researched the New York Municipal Archives for the Roses homes and helped with the picture permissions. Thanks to Cheryl Olivieri and John Quezada for putting the illustrations in the correct digital format. Thanks also to Celia Braxton for additional Boston Investigator research.

Throughout this project, my fellow historians have been immensely helpful and supportive. Thanks to Ted McCormick for the phrase the rabbis atheist daughter; to Mary Louise Roberts for sending me her M.A. thesis on Rose and Wright; to Harriet Alonso, Carol Faulkner, Ann Gordon, and Nancy Hewitt for providing letters about Rose; to Gunja SenGupta for help with anniversary week; to Toba Singer and her family for informing me about orthodox Jewish practices; and to Jocelyn Wills for book loans. The German Womens History Study Group, going strong in New York City since the early 1980s, read and commented on the entire book. Thanks to Dolores Augustine, Marion Berghahn, Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, Amy Hackett, Maria Hoehn, Marion Kaplan, Jan Lambertz, Mary Nolan, Krista ODonnell, Katherine Pence, and Julia Sneeringer for all their work. In addition, a number of friends read and commented on my manuscript. Thanks to Nan Bases, Verna Gillis, Linda Grasso, Cheryl Olivieri, my sister, Jeanie Raben, and especially Stephanie Golden, for their help. My former writing partner and dear friend, Judith Zinsser, provided encouragement through the years. I could not have done my work without support from them and many others.

Her audience, responding to a call to consider the Rights, Duties and Relations of Woman, confirmed the growing strength of a truly national reform movement for female equality. Only about 300 people had attended the 1848 meeting in the village of Seneca Falls, New York. The same number convened in Worcester in 1850. The city had been chosen because it was a fast-growing center of manufacturing, culture, and reform. When the second National Womans Rights Convention met there again in 1851, the crowd tripled and women were in the majority. Wide publicity about the first national meeting, even though much was hostile, attracted an impressive audience that had been warned in the announcement summoning participants that the work contemplated is no childs play. It wars directly with the thought