Dora Russell

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Dora Russell, 1922, photographed by Lady Ottoline Morrell

Dora Winifred Russell , née Black (born April 3, 1894 in Thornton Heath , † May 31, 1986 in Porthcurno ) was a British author, feminist and political activist. She was married to Bertrand Russell from 1921 to 1935 .

Life

Childhood and studies

Dora Black was born on April 3, 1894 in Thornton Heath, London, the second of four children into an upper middle class family. Her father, Sir Frederick Black, took the view, progressive for his time, that girls, like boys, have a right to a good education. Dora therefore attended a private elementary school, where she received a scholarship to Sutton High School . When she was 17, she attended a private girls' boarding school in Germany for a year and received a scholarship to Girton College in Cambridge, where she studied French and German.

She graduated from Cambridge with honors in 1915 ("First Class Honors"). During her studies, Black also joined the Heretics Society Charles Kay Ogdens , which challenged traditional roles and religious dogmatism. Membership in this group influenced their feminist thinking and understanding of traditional values.

Relationship with Bertrand Russell

After studying at Cambridge, Black moved back to London and began further studies in French at University College London . A little later, in 1916, she met Bertrand Russell , whom she supported in his campaign against conscription . In the following years, the relationship between the two solidified and they traveled together to the Soviet Union , as well as the Republic of China and the Japanese Empire . She made contributions to Bertrand's books The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920) and The Problem of China (1923) and co-authored The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923).

Dora viewed marriage as a restriction on sexual freedom and a means of female submission. She therefore initially rejected Bertrand's marriage proposal. Although Bertrand accepted her position, he wanted a son with Dora and a common family name. After they returned to England from Asia together, Dora was pregnant. As a result, Bertrand divorced his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith , in 1921 . Black and Russell eventually got married. Dora gave birth to a son, John , in 1921 and a daughter, Katharine, in 1923. For their two children, among others, Dora and Bertrand founded the libertarian, experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927 .

After Bertrand's older brother Frank died in 1931, Bertrand became the 3rd Earl Russell and Dora became Countess Russell .

Dora, who propagated a polygamous way of life, had two other children (Harriet in 1930 and Roddy in 1932) with the journalist Griffin Barry. The relationship with Bertrand finally failed and the two separated in 1932. In 1936, Bertrand married the governess of their children, Patricia Spence .

From 1943 to 1950 Dora worked for the British Ministry of Information as a research assistant.

Political and social engagement

Dora Russell was socially and politically active in many ways. Among other things, she campaigned for women's rights / equality, sexual liberation, education and peace.

In 1924 she ran unsuccessfully for the Labor Party and remained a member of the Independent Labor Party after it split from Labor in 1932. She was a founding member of the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals (FPSI) in 1932, the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) in 1934 and many others Initiatives and Organizations.

Women's rights

Dora Russell was a strong advocate for women's rights . It was important to her to inform women about the possibilities of contraception . She saw access to this and information about the topic as a fundamental prerequisite for enabling women to control their own lives and to emancipate themselves . In Hypatia or Woman and Knowledge (1925) she writes “We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them. Nor should we represent motherhood as something so common and easy that everyone can go through it without harm or suffering and rear her children competently and well ".

Together with HG Wells and John Maynard Keynes , she founded the Workers' Birth Control Group . In 1929 she organized a five-day congress for the World League for Sexual Reform together with Norman Haire , which was attended by well-known intellectuals from all over the world.

Russell was active in various women's rights organizations and was a founding member of the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) in 1936.

education and parenting

Together with Bertrand, Dora founded the libertarian-progressive Beacon Hill School in 1927 , which was supposed to convey rational thinking. After separating from Bertrand, Dora continued the school alone until 1943. She published her views on education in 1932 under the title In Defense of Children .

Peace movement

After the war, Russell was heavily involved in the peace movement . She was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in which she campaigned for nuclear disarmament together with Bertrand, JB Priestley , Michael Foot , Victor Gollancz and others . In The Right to Be Happy (1927, p. 205) she writes “Strictly speaking, no person who believes that wars between classes and nations are inevitable is fit to be in charge of the destiny of children. To believe in the unity of the human race and get children to believe it in early youth would mean the creation of that unity and the end of war. ”In 1958 she took the Women's Caravan of Peace to Moscow.

Publications

  • together with Bertrand Russell: The Prospects of Industrial Civilization . 1923.
  • Hypatia or Woman and Knowledge . 1925. EP Dutton.
  • The right to be happy . 1927. Harper & Brothers.
  • In Defense of Children . 1932. Hamish Hamilton.
  • Mister Wiggly Squiggly . 1972. Stockwell.
  • Three volume autobiography The Tamarisk Tree
    • Volume 1: My Quest for Liberty and Love . 1975. Putnam.
    • Volume 2: My School and the Years of War . 1981.
    • Volume 3: Challenge of the Cold War . 1985.
  • Religion of the Machine Age . 1983. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
  • The Dora Russell reader: 57 years of writing and journalism, 1925-1982 . 1983. Pandora Press.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Diana Wyndham. 2012. Norman Haire and the Study of Sex . Sydney.
  2. ^ Judith Levine. Women and Children First - Dora Russell and the Evolution of Feminism, Boston Review , April 30, 2014 http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/judith-levine-women-children-first-dora-russell-feminism
personal data
SURNAME Russell, Dora
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Russell, Dora Winifred (full name); Black, Dora Winifred (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author, feminist and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Thornton Heath
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1986
Place of death Porthcurno