Ernestine L. Rose: Freethinking Rebel

GREAT MINDS sion and reinforcement, uplifted by the energy and excitement of shared belief. Ernestine L. Rose: Beginning in 1850, Rose helped orga- nize the national women’s rights conventions that were held yearly after the 1848 Seneca Falls meeting. As the women’s Freethinking Rebel rights movement grew, in part because of the great success of her speeches at the yearly conventions, Rose became one Carol Kolmerten of the most important speakers in the movement and the one the newspapers labeled as “the most eloquent.” he editor of a small Maine news- Despite her importance, Rose is per- paper wrote “It would be shame- haps the most forgotten of the women’s T ful to listen to this woman, a thousand times below a prostitute.” A minister in Charleston, South Carolina, Ernestine L. Rose forbade his congregation to heed “this 1810–1892 female devil.” The object of this scorn was Ernestine L. Rose, one of the major Background Born Ernestine Potowski, daughter of an Orthodox intellectual forces behind then women’s rabbi in the ghetto of Piotrkow, Poland. Rebellious rights movement in nineteenth-century since age five, she rejected Judaism, left home, America. traveled, and, in England, became an advocate of The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University Robert Owen’s socialism. Emigrating to the United Rose spent more than four decades States in 1836 with her husband, jeweler William arguing for women’s rights and against Rose, she quickly emerged as a fiery freethought, legal and social restrictions on women. women’s rights, and abolition lecturer. vate property and organized religion and Born in Poland in 1810 of Jewish parents, Achievement the importance of education, freethought, Rose was one of the earliest women to give public Rose chafed at her father’s religion at an and women’s rights. Her first and most lectures in the United States, following Frances early age. Leaving home at seventeen, she (Fanny) Wright (1795–1852). Despite her Polish important early platform was close to first traveled to Berlin, where she is reput- accent and relentless manner, Rose became a home—the annual New York City Thomas marquee speaker who helped draw thousands ed to have invented a chemical paper to Paine birthday celebration. There, amidst to women’s rights, antislavery, and freethought perfume apartments (“Cologne waters”), her freethinking friends, Rose joined the events. Throughout her public life she espoused a then sailed to England. In England Rose consistent platform of atheism, freedom of thought, men every January 29, making toasts quickly became enamored with the ideas of equal rights for women, and the abolition of slavery. and giving speeches on the “superstition” Notable Work socialist Robert Owen. At an Owenite meet- inherent in Chris tianity. In 1853, she was Rose is known to history primarily as a speaker on ing she met her future husband, William the women’s suffrage and antislavery movements. selected president of the New York Paine Rose, and together they came to the New One of her freethought speeches, “A Defense of Society, a first-ever accomplishment for a Atheism,” was preserved in pamphlet form by World in May of 1836 as reformers. woman in any Paine group. Boston freethought publisher J.P. Mendum. Within months, Ernestine Rose had Accolades By the early 1850s, Rose was increas - begun speaking to groups of New Yorkers Returning to England in 1869, Rose was befriend- ingly dedicated to the intertwined issues about “Mr. Owen’s system,” while her ed by leading British freethinkers. Atheist Charles of women’s rights and free thought. She Bradlaugh and freethinking cleric Moncure husband opened a jewelry repair shop to believed, as Robert Owen had before Conway spoke at her husband’s funeral in help support her speaking efforts. Rose’s 1882. She became close to Bradlaugh’s daugh- her—until he converted to Christian first cause during her first winter in New ter and biographer, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner. mysticism in his old age—that the devel- Freethought firebrand George Jacob Holyoake York City was the Married Woman’s opment of organized religion and the spoke at Rose’s graveside ten years later. Property Act—she gathered signatures to Fitting Epitaph capitalist economic system were the pass legislation that would allow married “But for the fact that such genuine reformers are major causes of women’s inferior sta- never suitably appreciated in their days and gen- women to retain their property after mar- tus. But Rose, unlike Owen, understood eration, she would now be the most popular, as riage. At a time when almost no woman from the context of her life how a simple she has long been the best, female lecturer in the spoke in public, Rose spent her first United States.” —Rabbi Jonas Bondi, May 1869 change of economic systems would not decade in the United States writing and Note alone liberate women. Women needed, Annie Laurie Gaylor, ed. Women Without Super- lecturing throughout the country on tra- she believed, to work together in con- stition (Madison, Wis.: FFRF Inc., 1997), pp. ditional Owenite concerns: the evil of pri- 63–72. certed and unified action. They needed Carol Kolmerten is a professor of a gathering much like the Paine cele- English at Hood College, in Fred erick, brations, a unifying space, as it were, Maryland. Her biography of Ernestine that would provide them with the moral Rose, The American Life of Ernestine L. equivalent of evangelical rivals. Isolated Rose, is now available from Syracuse women could come together for conver- University Press. 53 http://www.secularhumanism.org summer 2002 rights activists; today virtually no one sional men who were out for individual on immigrants’ rights—when Rose sud- knows her name. She is, to use Virginia gain to the detriment of societal benefit. denly told Anthony that she had heard Woolf’s words, “a stranded ghost.” Her The only professional Rose did not lam- her friend, women’s rights activist Lucy disappearance from history is telling: not baste was the schoolmaster, a figure that Stone, express prejudice against grant- only was she scorned by newspaper edi- typically was the subject of ridicule. ing to foreigners the rights of citizen- tors and Southern ministers, but she also The morning before Rose’s final talk, ship. It was a subject that Rose, who was isolated from and sometimes ignored the two women attended the Baltimore was not yet a citizen, felt strongly about. by the very women and men with whom Universalist Church to hear a sermon Anthony, unable to believe any- she shared reform platforms. Rose was on “Woman’s Sphere,” where they thing bad about Lucy Stone,1 expressed an “other” in a movement of others—an heard that women should have rights disbelief that she would say such a outsider in a group of women who banded but should not have equal rights with thing. Rose countered by saying that together against oppression. She looked men. The morning sermon influenced Anthony was blinded by “that clique of and sounded different from the other Rose’s evening talk in the Committee Abolitionists.” Anthony felt compelled women: she spoke with a foreign accent; Room of the Maryland Institute, where to defend Stone, asking Rose “Is there she was outspoken; she was ironic. she spoke of “Charity,” or rather the not one in the Reform ranks, whom you Even more significant, Rose was a lack of it as expressed in sectarian- think true, not one but whom panders to professed freethinker. In a movement ism and in the “monstrous cruelties” the popular feeling?” that drew much of its moral and intel- perpetrated by dogmatic clergymen. Rose answered that she could not lectual energy from appeals to Christian Rose ended her speech by reviewing the help it: “I take them by the words of piety, the combination of Rose’s athe- morning’s sermon and then imploring their own mouths. I trust all until their ism, her Jewish and Polish background, her listeners to ensure that there could own words or acts declare them false her foreign accent, and her outspoken never be a time again when “priestly to truth and right.” Yet, such forthright ways made her an obvious target for bloodhounds” would have permission words caused anguish for Rose. She antagonistic newspaper editors and to “hunt down and mercilessly butcher tried to explain her misery to Anthony: ministers who wanted to prove how those who may simply differ from them “No one can tell the hours of anguish radical and wrongheaded the women’s in opinion.” Anthony called her speech I have suffered, as one after another I rights movement was. But the blunt a “glorious” one and was immensely have seen those whom I had trusted, daughter of Eastern European culture pleased that, even though the hall seat- betray falsity of motive as I have been also caused discomfort and unease for ed about five hundred people, hundreds compelled to place one after another on those within the movement. Rose acted were unable to get in because all the the list of panderers to public favor.” as a kind of barometer for the reformers; seats were sold. Ten years younger and far less cyn- she registered their anti-Semitism, their Local papers noted Rose’s power- ical, Anthony responded: “Do you know anti-immigrationist sentiment, and their ful oratorical style. The Baltimore Mrs. Rose, that I can but feel that you unconscious racism. Rose’s story is thus Repub lican and Argus praised “Mrs. place me too on that list.” Rose hesitat- a story outside the standard narrative of Rose’s Lecture” as “forcible, nay truly ed, implying that Anthony was correct.

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