Women Scientists Start Esperanto Group

Margaret Henderson
Bacteriologist.
Esperantist.

The April 5, 1906 San Francisco Call article on an Esperanto group at the University of California, Berkeley, says more the role of women in science in the early twentieth century than it intends to, and less about the Esperanto group than I’d prefer. The article tells us that the group included “a number of faculty people and others connected with the university,” but doesn’t give any hint as to how large that number is, or who the other people might be. It also gives short shrift to the accomplishments of one of the women involved.

The article also makes a whopper of an error, which I am leaving in place. Once, I’d call it a typographical error, and just quietly replace it, but as it occurs twice, it’s clear that it was the author’s intention, and so I’ll side with the writer for the Call, even though he or she is completely wrong. You’ll see.

The article is dwarfed by the picture of Margaret Henderson, which fills in between the headline and the text of the article. I wish they had had an image of Alice Robertson, since I was not able to find any images of her. She is somewhat overshadowed by a woman with nearly the same name, Alice Mary Robertson, who was born somewhat before our Esperantist and managed to outlive her. Alice Mary Robertson was the second woman to hold a seat in Congress (there are plenty of pictures of her). I’ll get to our Esperantist soon.

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A Woman. A Journalist. An Esperantist

Matheson, about 1897

Florence Matheson’s moment of fame had nothing to do with Esperanto. I researching her life, the only statement that she had anything to do with the Esperanto movement comes from the March 6, 1918 Washington Times, even though she was both a journalist and engaged in many social organizations. Her membership in the “Esperanto Society” isn’t particularly surprising, as much as mystifying. But a little research identified it.

The Times article is one of those period things, in which the travels of more (or less) prominent people ended up in the newspaper. Judith Martin in one of her Miss Manners column cited the old adage that a woman’s name properly appears in the newspapers only three times: when she is born, when she is married, and when she dies. Martin forgot to add “and whenever she travels.” The Times gives a brief biography of of their subject.

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Esperanto, the Language of Women’s Rights

Virinoj devas havi rajtojn!

One of the characteristics of Esperanto that it doesn’t seem to share with other planned language movements is a commitment to social justice. Not to say that every Esperantist is a progressive, far from it.[1] Early on, the language was picked up by the socialist movement[2] and the workers’ movement. It seems that people promoting conservative causes are less likely to be encouraging people to learn an international language, though, once again, there are conservative Esperantists.[3]

It should not be a surprise that in 1910 one of the speeches at the Universala Kongreso was in favor of women’s rights. One of the articles read on the forming of the Esperanto Association of North America noted the presence of women in leadership roles. In 1908, the expectation was that women would be shunted off to the ladies’ auxiliary (and, admitted, EANA did have such a group). On the other hand, I can’t imagine people like Ivy Kellerman Reed and Winifred Stoner, Sr. conceding that they should take subordinate positions on the account of their sex.

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Salome Whitman — A First for Women

Well, it is a first.

The article in the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer of August 20, 1884, says that Salome Whitman was a historic first a woman in the state of Pennsylvania, but before you start lauding her as a early feminist, you should know that what Ms. Whitman was a first at was that she was first woman convicted in Pennsylvania of stealing horses.

This is sort of astonishing. Pennsylvania became a state with the rest of the original thirteen states. Is the Lancaster Daily Intelligencer really telling us that the state went from the Federal period, through the Civil War, all the way to 1884 stealing horses? What was wrong with the women of Pennsylvania?

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