Women’s History Month – Special Collections & The Gallery

In honor of Lá Fhéile Pádraig (St. Patrick’s Day) and Women’s History Month, the name Alice Stopford Green is one that has a prominent place in the Scoláireacht Stairiúil ar Éire (Historical scholarship on Ireland) as one of the earliest twentieth century intellectual chroniclers who was able to write in depth with the benefit of diverse and multi-subject based primary sources about varied aspects of Irish history. In addition, she made her mark not only as one of the first female, but overall trailblazing members of Seanad Éireann (Irish Parliament) with the birth of the Irish Free State during the 1920s. The Archives & Special Collections has collected a number of her works which are featured a part of our Irish Book holdings library within the Archives & Special Collections Center.

A native of Kells, Alice Sophia Amelia Stopford entered the world on May 30, 1847, the seventh of ninth children born to Edward Adderley Stopford, who three years earlier was appointed the Archdeacon of Meath under the authority of her grandfather Edward (d. 1850), who was a former Bishop of Meath (1842-50), as part of the Church of Ireland (Anglican) hierarchy. (Johnston; Wikipedia). The Stopford family proper were long standing residents of Éire as contemporaries and acknowledged scholars who traveled with Oliver Cromwell and his adherents during their conquest of Ireland.

Map of Ireland, c. 1925. Stopford Green usually included a map of Ireland in her books to provide visual perspective to compliment her text

The migratory history of the Stopford clan also included ties to various family members residing in London. Periodic visits made by Alice to the largest city in Great Britain led to her meeting John Richard Green (1837-83), a combination cleric and scholar who would eventually become a noted historian in his own right with the publication of Short History of the English People (London: Macmillan, 1874).

Alice and John married in 1877 and she assisted her husband in his research and writing as a documenter of Irish heritage and she adopted his methodology in the process. Although John passed away in 1883, Alice rallied from this loss to become an active presence in the publishing world and began sharing her own work with the public (R.B. McDowell).

by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron (later The Cameron Studio),photograph,1880s

After repeated sojourns across the Irish Sea during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in 1918 Stopford Green permanently moved back to Ireland. Stepford Green would become a very passionate supporter of the Gaelic Revival and its goals for the preservation and proliferation of Irish language, scholarship, and political independence. As a result of her passion and persuasive nature Stepford Green helped to create and maintain a Celtic Studies program located in Dublin (Johnston).

Stepford Green also became involved with international movements in Africa, studied the colonial policies toward that continent, and advocated justice for the indigenous populations in relation to the quest for Irish independence.

After the initial publication of her seminal work – The Making of Ireland and its Undoing, 1200-1600 (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1908) where she explores the history of economics and education in the Irish experience, Stopford Green wrote two subsequent patriotic-themed books entitled: Irish Nationality (1911) and The Old Irish World (1912). These works written pre-Easter Rising continued in the nationalistic, yet scholarly vein (Wikipedia). Ironically, Stopford Green served as the first female president of the British Historical Association (1915-18), turning her pen towards producing essays and articles attempting to heal the escalating divisions in Irish society (Wikipedia).

Stopford Green was celebrated for her hopes for a distinctive Irish constitution, a parliament controlled by the Sinn Féin party (“We Ourselves”) and for re-examing the “Dominion Status” model found in Canada prior to their own independence (Wikipedia). She was also a confidant of Michael Collins and others in the Home Rule movement, along with being an occasional gun runner for the underground (Wikipedia). After the partition and Civil War (she was pro-Treaty) during the early 1920s, Stopford Green lived adjacent to St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin and kept up a busy social schedule, including frequent visits to the North of Ireland to keep in contact with friends across these counties and the Free State alike (Johnston).

In addition to her attention to intellectual and social affairs, Stopford Green was a co-founder of the Cumman na Saoirse (The League for Freedom) a female Irish Republican organization, along with becoming one of the first individuals nominated to serve in the newly formed Senate of Ireland (Seanad Éireann), and in the process she became one of the first four women elected or appointed to this chamber in 1922 and served as a member of this body until 1929 (Wikipedia; Mitchell 15). Stopford Green passed away on May 28, 1929 and was buried at Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin. Her grave marker reads: “Historian of the Irish People” (Mitchell 15)

Within the holdings catalog of the Irish Book Collections found Archives & Special Collections included the following first edition volumes written by Alice Stopford Green . . .

The Making of Ireland and its Undoing 1200-1600 (London: Macmillan 1908), Do., 2nd ed., with add. Appendix (Oct. 1909; rep. 1913),. xxiv, 573 pp.; Do. [another ed.] (London: Macmillan 1924), 573pp.; and Do. [rep. of 1st Ed.] (NY: Books for Libraries Press 1972), xvi, 511 pp.
Irish National Tradition (London: Macmillan 1923), 31 pp. [rep. from History (July 1917)
Irish Nationality [Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, No. 6] (London: Williams & Nordgate [1911], 1922, 1925), 256 pp.; [another ed.] (London: T. Butterworth 1929), 252pp. [also Irish trans., as infra].
History of the Irish State to 1014 (London: Macmillan & Co 1925), xi, 437 pp., ill. [front. map; maps, plan].
The Old Irish World (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son 1912), vii, 3 lvs., 197 pp., ill. [pls., maps (1 fold.); 23cm.].
The Irish and the Armada (Dublin: Cumann Léigheacht an Phobail 1921), 27 pp.
An Irish School (London: Macmillan and Co. St. Martin’s Street, London, 1926), 15 pp.

https://setonhall.on.worldcat.org/search?clusterResults=off&queryString=stopford+green

For more information about Alice Stopford Green and her works (The Making of Ireland and its Undoing 1200-1600 in particular) please consult the following link to the journal Critical Inquiries Into Irish Studies – https://scholarship.shu.edu/ciiis/ under the Téacsúil Fionnachtain (“Textual Discovery”) entry, and/or you can contact via the following e-mail address: Archives@shu.edu or by phone at: (973) 275-2378.

Works Cited

“Alice Stopford Green,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/_wiki/Alice Stopford Green Accessed 1 January 2021.

“Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929),” Ricorso.Net, http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/index.htm Accessed 1 January 2021.

“The Bookshelf – The Making of Ireland and its Undoing,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 18 December 1909, 9.

“Ireland and the Tudors,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 25 June 1908, 7.

Johnston, Roy. Century of Endeavour – Life and Times of Alice Stopford Green, 1999. http://www.rjtechne.org/century130703/1900s/asgmcd.htm Accessed 1 January 2021.

McDowell, RB. Alice Stopford Green – A Passionate Historian, Dublin, Allen Figgis, 1967.

Mitchell, Angus. “An Irishman’s Diary,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 2 December 2019, 15.

“Mrs. Green’s History of Ireland – Mrs. J.R. Green’s Remarkable Volume on The Making of Ireland and its Undoing (1200-1600),” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 26 September 1908, 18.

“Noted Irish Writer – Death of Mrs. A. Stopford Green – Her Gift to Free State Senate,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 29 May 1929, 7.

O’Brien, George. “Book of the Day – Passionate Historian,” Irish Times & Irish Weekly Times, 11 July 1967, 9.

SetonCat Entry. Seton Hall University Libraries, “Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929);” Stopford Green, Alice. The Making of Ireland and its Undoing, 1200-1600, MacMillan and Company, Ltd., 1909.

https://setonhall.on.worldcat.org/search?clusterResults=off&query String=stopford+green#/oclc/456747. Accessed 1 January 2021.

“Students’ Department – Selected Motto for 1908,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 26 September 1908, 18.

“The Bookshelf – The Making of Ireland and its Undoing,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 18 December 1909, 9.

“The Elected Members, Who’s Who of the Last Thirty,” Irish Times & Weekly Times, 16 December 1922, 5.

Image from: Harriot Stanton Blatch
Mobilizing Woman Power.
New York: The Womans (sic) Press, 1918.

CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

Since 1995, successive Presidents of the United States have issued annual proclamations to honor women each March for Women’s History Month.[1] What had begun in 1978 as a local celebration with students in Santa Rosa, California has become a national acknowledgment of the roles, accomplishments and contributions of women in society.[2] The foundation of these celebrations is rooted in International Women’s Day which has been observed annually on March 8 since the turn of the 20^th century.[3]

This year’s theme for Women’s History Month is “Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to be Silenced” in recognition of the centennial anniversary of the Suffrage Movement and the passage of the 19th Amendment which guarantees and protects women’s constitutional right to vote. On this occasion, women-centered institutions, organizations, and scholars from across the United States work to ensure this anniversary, and the 72-year fight to achieve it, are commemorated and celebrated nationally.[4]

Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch played a pivotal role in the fight for women’s voting rights. The daughter of famous suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Henry B. Stanton, an abolitionist, politician and journalist, Blatch was uniquely positioned to champion the cause.[5] Though Blatch dedicated herself to women’s suffrage, she was also concerned with broader related issues of women’s economic power, independence and enfranchisement.[6] She wrote many books articulating her thoughts on the suffrage movement and the implications of free women in society. Some of the images in this blog post are from her book “Mobilizing Woman Power” published in 1918. The book emphasizes women’s contributions to World War I, which ended the year Blatch’s book was published. The volume focuses on women’s sacrifice for the war effort as well as their disenfranchisement.[7] That same year in the United Kingdom, where Blatch had lived for 20 years previously, women were granted the right to vote in Parliamentary Elections.[8] Labor strikes and movements made news around the world, and the Bolshevik Revolution spurred further momentum for women’s and labor rights.

These global events did not go unnoticed in the United States. With more women in the work force due to industrialization and the war effort, Blatch’s ideas gained traction with the larger public. In another interesting note about her book, the foreword was written by Theodore Roosevelt, a strong ally and visible partner for women’s rights since 1912. In the New York State Assembly, the trail-blazing Roosevelt introduced a bill to punish perpetrators of domestic violence against women and appointed women to executive positions in the government.[9]

Image of Blatch giving a speech in Union Square, NYC — Harriot Stanton Blatch addressing Union Square suffrage meeting, photomechanical print
Library of Congress, National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division (26,530)

Blatch also contributed a 100-page chapter to the book “History of Women’s Suffrage” on the subject of Lucy Stone’s American Woman Suffrage Association[10]. The organization was considered a rival to the National Woman Suffrage Association, founded by her mother and social reformer, Susan B. Anthony[11]. The volume was produced collectively by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Ida Husted Harper.[12] Published in six volumes from 1881 to 1922, it is a history of the women’s suffrage movement, primarily in the United States.

Blatch speaking to crowds at Wall Street, NYC — Harriot Stanton Blatch speaking to large crowd of men, Wall Street, New York City.
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
https://loc.getarchive.net/media/in-the-days-of-old-dobbin-and-derby-hats-mrs-harriot-stanton-blatch-exhorted

The outspoken Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch was affiliated with both the Women’s Trade Union League and her mother’s National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1907, she founded the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women. Under her leadership the league enrolled thousands of working women who had never considered themselves political or rebellious. The burgeoning suffrage movement resulted in large, open-air meetings at which Blatch orated on the cause. On May 21, 1910, a mass parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City publicized the campaign, the first of many such public demonstrations which brought more visibility and support to the cause of women’s rights.[13] In her later years Blatch worked tirelessly for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first drafted in 1923 by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and introduced in Congress in December 1923. Still not ratified into law, The ERA is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.[14] Blatch, who lived until November 20, 1940 would not see the passage of this amendment which has yet to be ratified over 80 years after her death.

The images and materials shown here are but a small part of the vast patrimony available to students, faculty and researchers. For access to this or other objects in our collections, complete a research request form to set up an appointment or contact us at 973-761-9476.

[1] https://www.womenshistory.org/womens-history/womens-history-month, accessed 3/2/2021.

[2] https://www.etonline.com/womens-history-month-how-it-started-and-how-to-celebrate-161258, accessed 3/2/2021.

[3] https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Activity/15586/The-history-of-IWD, accessed 3/2/2021.

[4] https://www.2020centennial.org/, accessed 3/2/2021.

[5] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriot-Eaton-Stanton-Blatch, accessed 3/2/2021.

[6] https://www.amazon.com/Harriot-Stanton-Blatch-Winning-Suffrage/dp/0300080689, accessed 3/2/2021.

[7] https://www.loc.gov/item/18012004/, accessed 3/2/2021.

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/2018/feb/05/womens-suffrage-february-1918-first-women-gain-right-to-vote-in-parliamentary-elections, accessed 3/2/2021.

[9] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-gable/, accessed 3/2/2021.

[10] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harriot-Eaton-Stanton-Blatch, accessed 3/2/2021.

[11] http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/nwsa-organize, accessed 3/3/2021.

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Woman_Suffrage, accessed 3/3/2021.