This is the first full length biography of radical reformer Stella Browne, whose life, ideas and activities overturn so many assumptions about early twentieth-century politics and feminism. Stella Brown offers her biographer a window onto many neglected areas of twentieth-century history, and this context is vividly brought to life in this book. Lesley Hall's biography explores Stella Browne's life and times, from her upbringing in Nova Scotia into her political apprenticeship and life from militant suffragism in the early 1900s through her internationalism and involvement with Margaret Sanger and the birth control and sex-reform movements, her work among pacifist, Communist and feminist circles in North America, the UK and Continental Europe. Her relations with such as Rebecca West, Winifred Holtby, Havelock Ellist, Dora Russell and C.K.Ogden are central to the biography. Based on extensive and new research in primary sources in Britain, Europe and North America and on Stella Browne's own copious (and scattered) writings, this biography gives as rounded a portrait as is possible of this vivid and original woman, whose life and ideas are shown to have been well before her time.
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'[Stella Browne] was a wonderful women who well deserves this excellent biography.' -- Jad Adams, The Guardian
'Hall paints a vivid picture of this indomitable, trailblazing pioneer of legalized safe abortion. In so doing, she adds considerably to our knowledge about the sex reform movement in the first half of the 20th-century Britain and the critical place of Browne within it.' -- June Purvis, Times Higher Education
'A rigorous work of scholarship and an astute evocative account of an inspiring fighter for birth control, abortion and sexual freedom. This is an historically illuminating and exceedingly relevant book.' --Sheila Rowbotham
'Through a close and sympathetic analysis of Browne's hectic life, Hall has produced an innovative and enthralling history of the struggle for sex reform in the first half of the twentieth century as seen from the trenches. But she not only analyzes Browne's public presentations; having unearthed evidence of a number of her love affairs, Hall suggests how the public declarations on sexual issues of this complex and fascinating figure also reflected her personal experiences. The result is that Hall has crafted both an insightful history of the early twentieth-century fight for female reproductive choice and a moving portrait of the movement's most indefatigable and high-spirited campaigner.' --Angus McLaren
Hall paints a vivid picture of this indomitable, trailblazing pioneer of legalized safe abortion. In so doing, she adds considerably to our knowledge about the sex reform movement in the first half of the 20th-century Britain and the critical place of Browne within it. --June Purvis, Times Higher Education
Drawing on a huge range of archival material, letters and publications Hall provides a detailed picture of this complex, independent minded woman...Hall uncovers the visionary radical and dedicated internationalist who practiced what she preached..Hall s engrossing biography underlines Stella Browne as a woman for today. --The Chartist
Drawing on a huge range of archival material, letters and publications Hall provides a detailed picture of this complex, independent minded woman...Hall uncovers the visionary radical and dedicated internationalist who practiced what she preached..Hall s engrossing biography underlines Stella Browne as a woman for today. --The Chartist
'An outstanding account of a complex person... Lesley Hall's portrait of Stella Browne is nuanced and shows the complexities of her character.' --Socialist History
'Hall paints a vivid picture of this indomitable, trailblazing pioneer of legalized safe abortion. In so doing, she adds considerably to our knowledge about the sex reform movement in the first half of the 20th-century Britain and the critical place of Browne within it.' -- June Purvis, Times Higher Education
'A rigorous work of scholarship and an astute evocative account of an inspiring fighter for birth control, abortion and sexual freedom. This is an historically illuminating and exceedingly relevant book.' --Sheila Rowbotham
'Through a close and sympathetic analysis of Browne's hectic life, Hall has produced an innovative and enthralling history of the struggle for sex reform in the first half of the twentieth century as seen from the trenches. But she not only analyzes Browne's public presentations; having unearthed evidence of a number of her love affairs, Hall suggests how the public declarations on sexual issues of this complex and fascinating figure also reflected her personal experiences. The result is that Hall has crafted both an insightful history of the early twentieth-century fight for female reproductive choice and a moving portrait of the movement's most indefatigable and high-spirited campaigner.' --Angus McLaren
Hall paints a vivid picture of this indomitable, trailblazing pioneer of legalized safe abortion. In so doing, she adds considerably to our knowledge about the sex reform movement in the first half of the 20th-century Britain and the critical place of Browne within it. --June Purvis, Times Higher Education
Drawing on a huge range of archival material, letters and publications Hall provides a detailed picture of this complex, independent minded woman...Hall uncovers the visionary radical and dedicated internationalist who practiced what she preached..Hall s engrossing biography underlines Stella Browne as a woman for today. --The Chartist
Drawing on a huge range of archival material, letters and publications Hall provides a detailed picture of this complex, independent minded woman...Hall uncovers the visionary radical and dedicated internationalist who practiced what she preached..Hall s engrossing biography underlines Stella Browne as a woman for today. --The Chartist
'An outstanding account of a complex person... Lesley Hall's portrait of Stella Browne is nuanced and shows the complexities of her character.' --Socialist History
About the Author
Lesley A. Hall is Senior Archivist at the Wellcome Library and an honorary lecturer in History of Medicine at University College London. Her many publications include 'The Facts of Life: the Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950' (with the late Roy Porter), 'Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain Since 1880', and 'Outspoken Women: An Anthology of Women's Writing on Sex, 1870-1969. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her website can be found at http://www/lesleyahall.net.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By MadamJMo
Format:Hardcover
Stella Browne is a largely overlooked yet pivotal figure in British feminist history, and Lesley A Hall's meticulously researched biography of the "feminist and free spirit" reminds us just why we should remember and revere Stella.
Born in 1880, Stella had no intention of conforming to the conventional life society assumed for women, remaining not only unmarried, but taking a number of sexual partners of, gasp, both genders! She devoted her life to all number of women's causes, notably socialism, suffrage, lesbianism and, most significantly for Stella, sexual reform.
She was a tireless writer and campaigner for abortion rights and contraception, at a time when it was considered abhorrent to even mention either topic in polite society. Taking no notice of what was expected of her, Stella wrote and spoke publically to demand women's rights for safe abortions, revealed to a government committee that she had undergone abortions herself (which was illegal at the time), and co-founded the Abortion Law Reform Association.
Stella is presented in this biography as a frequently unfashionable woman, who was disliked by many of her contemporaries, quite possibly for her dominance, outspokenness and plain speaking. But the simple fact that she campaigned for birth control information to be freely available to women and men, unmarried and married, marks Stella as a deeply important character.
Hall's book is a thorough and in-depth analysis of Stella's life, which is no mean feat considering how scant the existing research is. But Hall has unearthed a library of letters and papers that have helped her piece together a well-informed and fascinating insight into this extraordinary woman's life.... Read more ›
Born in 1880, Stella had no intention of conforming to the conventional life society assumed for women, remaining not only unmarried, but taking a number of sexual partners of, gasp, both genders! She devoted her life to all number of women's causes, notably socialism, suffrage, lesbianism and, most significantly for Stella, sexual reform.
She was a tireless writer and campaigner for abortion rights and contraception, at a time when it was considered abhorrent to even mention either topic in polite society. Taking no notice of what was expected of her, Stella wrote and spoke publically to demand women's rights for safe abortions, revealed to a government committee that she had undergone abortions herself (which was illegal at the time), and co-founded the Abortion Law Reform Association.
Stella is presented in this biography as a frequently unfashionable woman, who was disliked by many of her contemporaries, quite possibly for her dominance, outspokenness and plain speaking. But the simple fact that she campaigned for birth control information to be freely available to women and men, unmarried and married, marks Stella as a deeply important character.
Hall's book is a thorough and in-depth analysis of Stella's life, which is no mean feat considering how scant the existing research is. But Hall has unearthed a library of letters and papers that have helped her piece together a well-informed and fascinating insight into this extraordinary woman's life.... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An impeccably researched biography, enriched by its sympathy for its subject
18 July 2012
By Happyliberal
Format:Hardcover
In 1938, at a time when activists for legal abortion were middle-class reformers who based their argument on the alarming numbers of working-class mothers harmed or killed by illegal abortions, Frances Worsely Stella Browne stood up before a parliamentary committee on abortion and assured it, `I have...the knowledge in my own person that, if abortion were necessarily fatal or injurious, I should not now be here before you.' Stella's admission that she, an unmarried, childless, educated middle-class woman, had had an abortion--three, in fact--at a time when the topic was barely discussed was in keeping with a life so devoted to massive change that even her own colleagues thought her radical.
In this impeccably researched biography, enriched by its sympathy for its subject, Wellcome Library archivist Lesley A. Hall illuminates a long-neglected figure and her determined campaigns for a range of issues--the vote for women, birth control, divorce reform, socialism, pacifism, and a more enlightened attitude toward sexuality among them--while establishing the importance of her work to the pro-choice cause in the UK. Hall also suggests ways in which Stella's own life, as difficult as it is to reconstruct, may have helped shape her thought; her commitment to free love and her own experiences influenced her opinions on human sexual diversity as well as her translations of sexological works, lectures, and published work.
Born in Canada in 1880, Stella most likely had personal experience of abortion by 1915, and in 1922 she made what is likely the first argument on a public platform in Britain for legalization.... Read more ›
In this impeccably researched biography, enriched by its sympathy for its subject, Wellcome Library archivist Lesley A. Hall illuminates a long-neglected figure and her determined campaigns for a range of issues--the vote for women, birth control, divorce reform, socialism, pacifism, and a more enlightened attitude toward sexuality among them--while establishing the importance of her work to the pro-choice cause in the UK. Hall also suggests ways in which Stella's own life, as difficult as it is to reconstruct, may have helped shape her thought; her commitment to free love and her own experiences influenced her opinions on human sexual diversity as well as her translations of sexological works, lectures, and published work.
Born in Canada in 1880, Stella most likely had personal experience of abortion by 1915, and in 1922 she made what is likely the first argument on a public platform in Britain for legalization.... Read more ›
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