Josephine Butler.
Biography of Josephine Butler
Fawcett, Millicent, GBE and E.M. Turner. Josephine Butler. Her work and principles, and their meaning for the Twentieth Century. Specially written for the Josephine Butler Centenary, 1828-1928. London: The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, 1927.
8vo.; black-and-white photographs of Butler and her husband George with facsimiles of their signatures on coated paper interspersed with the text; front endpaper partially detached; hinges cracked; brown cloth spine, marbled, paper-covered boards; spine stamped in blind; edgeworn.
First edition. A biography of Josephine Butler (1828-1906), examining the impact of her feminist views and her 18-year fight to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, which gave magistrates the power to examine prostitutes involuntarily and imprison them if they were found to have sexually transmitted diseases. A police order was all that was required for a genital examination to take place, regardless of any evidence of prostitution, and as a result, many women’s reputations were ruined and some even committed suicide. The Acts were finally repealed in 1886. A devout Christian, Butler believed prostitution to be a sin, but sympathized with the plight of the exploited women she met through her social work in Liverpool. She famously once said, “God and one woman make a majority.” With a timeline of key dates from Butler’s life and political activism, an appendix listing works written by Butler, and an index.
Fawcett, like Butler, was involved in the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. A moderate suffragist, she distanced herself from the more violent activities led by the Pankhursts and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), and founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She acted as leader of the NUWSS until 1919, one year after women in the UK were granted the right to vote. She published over a dozen books and articles, and wrote the introduction to the 1891 edition of Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She collaborated with Ethel M. Turner in writing Butler’s biography; Turner does not look up in standard biographic resources.
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