Cause, The.
Strachey, Ray. The Cause. A short history of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1928.
8vo.; sixteen illustrations; preliminaries and edges foxed; hinges tender; red cloth, spine stamped in black; light wear; cream printed dust-jacket; extremities nicked; spine lightly browned; discreet book store label on lower flap.
First edition of Strachey’s major contribution to feminist literature, virtually “the only source of the history of the women’s movement in Britain until the new wave of feminist writing in the 1970s.” Dedicated to Millicent Garrett Fawcett, “Who took up the task when the Movement began, who walked steadfastly in times of discouragement and wisely in times of hope, and who led the Movement to Victory,” it includes a frontispiece portrait of Fawcett, and fifteen other illustrations, primarily portraits. Strachey approaches her topic chronologically, discussing the history of the movement for equal rights in education, labor, and politics from 1792. She includes Florence Nightingale’s essay “Cassandra” as an appendix, and concludes with a bibliographical note.
This copy is from the library of Kate Archer, a minor Scottish-American poet and a participant in the suffrage movement in England. With her signature and note on the title page: Kate R. Archer/ I met and worked with Helen M[ ] the two Pankhursts Mrs. Pethwisk Lawrence, Teresa Billington Greig of Glasgow, to the great disgust of my father and brother. K.R.A. She added further notes on her role in feminist activities on the rear pastedown:
When I was sixteen I joined the movement for Women’s Suffrage—to my father’s great rage and disapproval—after a year’s work and observation I moved onto [ ] work—writing and interviewing—meeting college principals--; political figures and finally the Pankhursts, the Snowdens, Mr. Pithwork Lawrence.
In looking back, I have benefitted by the experience. I have been
1. Grain salesman in Scotland (£2000 a day business)
2. Supervisor of Army Canteens [ ]
3. Columnist
4. Radio programmer.
5. Professor—and Poet
6. Have [ ] and travelled in 6 countries—
Rachel “Ray” Strachey (1887-1940) is best-known for The Cause, but her other labors in the cause of woman suffrage, and in other women’s issues, are largely overlooked. Raised in England primarily by her grandmother, Hannah Whitall Smith, a transplanted Philadelphia Quaker whose profound influence on her life cannot be quantified, Ray attended Newnham College, and was befriended by Pippa Strachey and her mother, Lady Strachey, both active suffragettes. With allowances sent by her mother Mary from Florence, where she lived with her second husband Bernard Berenson (for whom she had left Ray’s father), Ray was free to pursue her unremunerative literary and political activities. In 1907 she participated in the “Mud March”; in 1908 and 1910 she accompanied the Reverend Anna Shaw on speaking tours of the United States and Great Britain, respectively.
In 1911 she proposed to—and was accepted by—Oliver Strachey, exuberantly flouting convention for a less than ecstatic match. Her sister Karin, meanwhile, married Virginia Woolf’s brother, Adrian Stephen. Though the Berenson’s Florence home provided a fashionable stopping place for Ray’s and Karin’s Bloomsbury friends, Ray’s marriage soon dissolved into a mere formality. Oliver took a series of mistresses and Ray was absorbed by her work. In 1912 she published a biography of Frances Willard, and in 1914, of her grandmother. During World War I she advocated for equal standards for women war workers, and in 1917 she became Millicent Fawcett’s “chief lieutenant, in all the behind-the-scenes negotiations which in 1918 resulted in the measure which gave women over thirty the vote at last.” Despite myriad accomplishments—Secretary of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies to 1921, Chairman of the Women’s Service Bureau to 1934, editor of The Common Ca
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