Rebel crossings : new women, free lovers, and radicals in Britain and America / Sheila Rowbotham.

Author
Rowbotham, Sheila [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
London ; New York : Verso, [2016]
Description
ix, 502 pages ; 24 cm

Availability

Available Online

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks HQ1595.A3 R69 2016 Browse related items Request

    Details

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    Library of Congress genre(s)
    Summary note
    "Rebel Crossings relates the interweaving lives of four women and two men as they journey from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, from Britain to America, and from Old World conventions toward New World utopias. Radicalised by the rise of socialism, Helena Born, Miriam Daniell, Gertrude Dix, Robert Nicol and William Bailie cross the Atlantic dreaming of liberty and equality. The hope for a new age is captured in the name Miriam and Robert give their love child, born shortly after their arrival: Sunrise. A young Bostonian, Helen Tufts learns of Miriam's defiant spirit through her close friendship with Helena; the love she feels for Helena and later for William fundamentally alters her life. All six are part of a wider historical search for self-fulfillment and an alternative to a cruelly competitive capitalism. In articles, poems and allegories Helena, Helen and Miriam resist the cultural constraints women face, while female characters in Gertrude's novels struggle to combine personal happiness with radical social commitment. William campaigns against class inequality as a socialist and an anarchist while longing to read and study.Robert, the former union militant, becomes preoccupied with personal growth and mystical enlightenment in the wilds of California. Rebel Crossings offers fascinating perspectives on the historical interaction of feminism, socialism, and anarchism and on the incipient consciousness of a new sense of self, so vital for women seeking emancipation. These six lives bring fresh slants on political and cultural movements and upon influential individuals like Walt Whitman, Eleanor Marx, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, Patrick Geddes and Benjamin Tucker. It is a work of significant originality by one of our leading feminist historians and speaks to the dilemmas of our own time."--Publisher information.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 401-486) and index.
    Contents
    • Radical endeavour: Helena Born
    • Subversive intimations: Miriam Daniell
    • Awakenings: Robert Allan Nicol
    • Exaltation: Autumn 1889
    • Seekers: 1890
    • New bearings: America 1890-1894
    • 'Knotty Points': William Bailie
    • Wanderers: 1892-1894
    • Revolutionary lineages: Helen Tufts
    • Whitmanites and new women: 1894-1897
    • Fabianism and free love: Gertrude Dix
    • Cosmic vibrations: 1894-1897
    • Love, pure food and the market: 1897-1899
    • Family ructions and political exploration: 1900
    • 'Separation': 1901-1902
    • 'Clues and meanings': 1898-1902
    • A new beginning: 1901-1902
    • Romancing the West: 1902-1908
    • Bundles of contradictions: 1903-1907
    • Political reorientation and a new arrival: 1907-1914
    • Elusive realities: 1908-1914
    • Loose endings.
    ISBN
    • 9781784785888 ((alk. paper))
    • 1784785881 ((alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016037503
    OCLC
    959965248
    Other standard number
    • 40026606440
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