Alice Moore Hubbard

Alice Moore Hubbard , née Alice Luann Moore (born June 7, 1861 in Wales , Erie County , New York , † May 7, 1915 in the Atlantic off the Irish coast ) was an American teacher , women's rights activist and author . She was a leading member of the Roycroft Society, an American branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement . She was the second wife of the writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard , the founder of Roycroft.

Life

Alice Moore Hubbard was one of at least four children of Welcome Moore (1814-1891) and his wife Melinda Bush (1822-1863). She grew up in the small town of Wales, New York, and attended Emerson College , Boston . Hubbard was an active advocate for women's rights, especially women's suffrage. She promoted the image of the "new woman". In 1906 she and her husband wrote the book Justinian and Theodora about the marriage of the Roman Emperor Justinian I and his wife, Empress Theodora I. Alone, Hubbard published a total of six books on emancipation and women's rights, including Women's Work (1908), Life Lessons ( 1909) and The Basis of Marriage (1910) are the best known. Her works dealt with the equal role of women in society.

Cover of the book Justinian and Theodora by Elbert and Alice Hubbard.

At a young age, Hubbard was an English teacher at the East Aurora Academy in the small town of East Aurora , New York. Around 1890 she met the married writer Elbert Hubbard, who lived in East Aurora and whose children attended the East Aurora Academy. Alice and Hubbard's first wife, Bertha, sat together on the local school board and Alice lived temporarily on the Hubbard's estate to give the children private lessons. An affair developed between the unhappily married Elbert Hubbard and the young teacher, from which their daughter Miriam Hubbard emerged in 1894 . Both were able to keep the relationship a secret for years. Miriam first grew up with Alice's sister Emma and her husband, the prominent lawyer Wayland W. Woodworth. She was told Alice was her aunt. When the Woodworths wanted to fight for social benefits for the child, the case was made public in 1901 and caused a social scandal and the marriage of Elbert and Bertha Hubbard in 1903.

On January 20, 1904, Elbert and Alice Hubbard were married in Bridgeport , Connecticut . In the course of this, Alice Hubbard took more and more part in the literary and artistic work of her husband and became one of the leading figures of Roycroft in East Aurora. Together with her husband, she founded the Roycroft Campus, an artist colony made up of writers, interior decorators and philosophers.

In 1915, Hubbard and her husband were killed in the sinking of the British luxury liner RMS Lusitania . After the outbreak of World War I , Elbert Hubbard wanted to travel to Europe in order to be able to report on the course of the war for his magazines The Fra and The Philistine . Alice Moore Hubbard accompanied her husband on board the Lusitania , one of the largest passenger steamers of its time, which left New York on May 1, 1915. The couple were photographed at Pier 54 prior to boarding (due to the note from the Imperial German Embassy in Washington, DC of April 22, 1915 regarding unrestricted submarine warfare , many photographers and reporters were at the Lusitania pier on the day of departure ). It was the last recordings made of them.

They occupied the first-class cabin B-70. The couple were on deck talking to fellow passengers when the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on May 7. According to reports from surviving eyewitnesses, neither Elbert nor Alice Hubbard attempted to get into any of the lifeboats , nor did they put on life jackets , even though Alice could not swim. They were last seen when they entered a room on the starboard side of the boat deck and closed the door behind them. Both were killed in the accident and their bodies were never found.

In their hometown of East Aurora, the Hubbards were celebrated as heroes. Hubbard's daughter, Miriam Hubbard Roelofs , assumed a leadership position within Roycroft after the death of her parents and became a co-founder of the Roycroft Campus Corporation, a society dedicated to preserving the historical and artistic legacy of the movement. Roycroft as an active movement only existed until the 1930s, but the Roycroft site in East Aurora was granted National Historic Landmark status in 1986 .

literature

Simmons, Ernest E .: In Memorium: Elbert And Alice Hubbard (1915)
Hamilton, Charles F .: As Bees In Honey Drown (1973)
Hamilton, Charles F .: Alice Hubbard, A Feminist Recalled
Mills, Dr. Angela: Mistress And Manager: Alice Hubbard of Roycroft (2007)

swell

personal data
SURNAME	Hubbard, Alice Moore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Moore, Alice Luann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American women's rights activist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH	June 7, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wales , Erie County , New York
DATE OF DEATH	May 7, 1915
Place of death	Atlantic off the Irish coast