February '13 / James Reading: The Bostonians

[mona amon]

I was actually wondering why you'd rate so highly a novel you see as simply a love story.

But I don't see at as a love story at all, leave aside simple. It is too unsatisfyingly unromantic to be a love story. James tells us outright that the union was far from brilliant, and there's really not a single character in the novel who seems to disagree with this.



And I'm saying that in marrying Verena, Basil is doing the foolish thing when in love. Not so the deep Verena who marries with eyes wide open: "Well," she replied, "I guess I have thought more than I appear." Verena's feminist convictions are very well established before she meets Basil: only the nature of her calling is in question.

I am surprised you think we disagree on Basil because I've agreed with all you had written about him. Can you cite evidence for feminist tolerance in Basil? I'd be astonished if you can.

No feminist tolerance as such. He feels that the place of women is at home practicing the domestic virtues and being charming to the men who own them, LOL. But I feel he’s like most men of his time, who accept patriarchy as the natural order. To oppose feminism is not his ideology. He doesn’t take it seriously enough for that. He doesn’t do anything to actively put down women.

I completely agree with you that Verena went into marriage with her eyes wide open. She’s not the type of young woman who is so blinded by love that she has any illusions about changing the man she wants to marry. She has absolutely no romantic illusions about what marriage with Basil will be like. And yet she’s so overcome by love for him that she succumbs.

Maybe I can offer you even more than a whispered hint . During the long, sober weeks between the holiday at Marmion and the Music Hall fiasco, a subdued Basil Ransom takes time to reflect on the prospect of married life with Verena. His misgivings concerning Verena are not dissimilar to Olive's, early in the novel. And at the Music Hall, Basil will take no comfort that Verena thrice pleads to speak from the stage or, on leaving, from the tears of a girl making an important sacrifice to do something great!

Doubtless, too, he had perceived how vain it was to hope to make Verena abjure a faith so solidly founded; and though he admired her enough to wish to possess her on his own terms, he shrank from the mortification which the future would have in keeping for him—that of finding that, after six months of courting and in spite of all her sympathy, her desire to do what people expected of her, she despised his opinions as much as the first day.

But this quote is the narrator giving us Olive's thoughts. They are not Basil's thoughts at all, but Olive trying to find reasons for Basil giving up his pursuit of Verena in New York. It goes on to say she was living in a fool's paradise. I don’t see how it proves your point.

Olive Chancellor was able to a certain extent to believe what she wished to believe, and that was one reason why she had twisted Verena's flight from New York, just after she let her friend see how much she should like to drink deeper of the cup, into a warrant for living in a fool's paradise.

Have you examined the possibility that Verena ("the sweetest flower of character...that had ever bloomed on earth") speaks nothing but the truth, and that her moral values and convictions are set in concrete from the first? Nothing I've read suggests that Olive or Basil make the least impact on Verena's integrity (I am quite strong enough!) If so, she is morally stronger than either cousin. Moreover, Verena has a power to charm that the finest mesmerist would envy and, perchance, fear.

We differ most on the credibility of Verena's utterances. For much of the novel, everyone but Mrs Luna (note the name) paints Verena with angelic integrity. Nevertheless, Basil believes that he is slowly but surely altering her convictions, Olive too believes she can manipulate Verena but, at Marmion, Olive despairs and even deems Verena insincere. But are they right about Verena? What if they underestimate her strength: what if no one can fathom the monumental moral depth of Verena Tarrant. Henry James, brother of the great American philosopher and psychologist William James, delights in psychological extremes:

[Verena] began to pray silently that Olive might not push; for it would be odious, it would be impossible, to defend herself by a lie.

Unlike you, I believe that gifted Verena is unerringly true to her well established moral principles and convictions. Remember that from the outset Verena maintains a healthy scepticism of Olive's vision and her antipathy for men, and Verena's big change, prompted by Basil's genuine vocation remark, is simply her absolute rejection of that vision. Why assume - though Henry James tempts us - that Verena's change goes further?

First of all, Verena is not all that truthful. It is Olive who is the truthful one. Verena lies by omission – “ It was not, after all, so easy to keep back only a little; it appeared rather as if one must either tell everything or hide everything. The former course had already presented itself to her as unduly harsh; it was because it seemed so that she had ended by keeping the incident of Basil Ransom's visit to Monadnoc Place buried in unspoken, in unspeakable, considerations, the only secret she had in the world — the only thing that was all her own. She was so glad to say what she could without betraying herself that it was only after she had spoken that she perceived there was a danger of Olive's pushing the inquiry to the point where, to defend herself as it were, she should be obliged to practise a positive deception; and she was conscious at the same time that the moment her secret was threatened it became dearer to her.” But to be fair, she is untruthful only because she’s so scared of Olive’s immense power for suffering. I don’t think it’s important, but you claimed she was unerringly truthful, so just pointing it out.

Also, who, with the sole exception of Mrs Birdseye (who is indiscriminately commendatory of everyone) , paints Verena with angelic integrity? Not her parents, not Mrs Farrinder, nor Mary Prance, nor even Olive and Basil, or any other character I can think of.

How well you express Basil Ransom's view of Verena's evolving psyche! Are we given reason here to think that Verena shares this view, that she will come to enjoy lunching on what she calls abominations? – Gladys

Those were my own views of Verena’s evolving psyche, based on what we’re given in the text. It’s Olive who has the intensity, the fixedness of purpose, the passionate dedication that you ascribe to Verena. No, I do not see Verena as insincere. She does earnestly believe in their cause, but it is a youthful enthusiasm dinned into her since childhood by others, and doesn’t go as deep as Olive’s.

The encounter with Basil in Central Park is the turning point. First she’s appalled by him. Previously, she’s always met his opposing views with joking equanimity, but now suddenly she’s scared, not of Basil’s views, but of her own faith being shaken.

Besides, you ought to know,' the young man proceeded, in the same cool, mild, deliberate tone, as if he were demonstrating a mathematical solution, 'you ought to know that your connection with all these rantings and ravings is the most unreal, accidental, illusory thing in the world. You think you care about them, but you don't at all. They were imposed upon you by circumstances, by unfortunate associations, and you accepted them as you would have accepted any other burden, on account of the sweetness of your nature. You always want to please some one, and now you go lecturing about the country, and trying to provoke demonstrations, in order to please Miss Chancellor, just as you did it before to please your father and mother. It isn't YOU, the least in the world, but an inflated little figure (very remarkable in its way too), whom you have invented and set on its feet, pulling strings, behind it, to make it move and speak, while you try to conceal and efface yourself there. Ah, Miss Tarrant, if it's a question of pleasing, [sic] how much you might please some one else by tipping your preposterous puppet over and standing forth in your freedom as well as in your loveliness!'

While Basil Ransom spoke--and he had not spoken just that way yet--Verena sat there deeply attentive, with her eyes on the ground; but as soon as he ceased she sprang to her feet--something made her feel that their association had already lasted quite too long. She turned away from him as if she wished to leave him, and indeed were about to attempt to do so. She didn't desire to look at him now, or even to have much more conversation with him. 'Something,' I say, made her feel so, but it was partly his curious manner--so serene and explicit, as if he knew the whole thing to [sic] an absolute certainty--which partly scared her and partly made her feel angry. She began to move along the path to one of the gates, as if it were settled that they should immediately leave the place. He laid it all out so clearly; if he had had a revelation he couldn't speak otherwise. That description of herself as something different from what she was trying to be, the charge of want of reality, made her heart beat with pain; she was sure, at any rate, it was her real self that was there with him now, where she oughtn't to be. In a moment he was at her side again, going with her; and as they walked it came over her that some of the things he had said to her were far beyond what Olive could have imagined as the very worst possible. What would be her state now, poor forsaken friend, if some of them had been borne to her in the voices of the air? Verena had been affected by her companion's speech (his manner had changed so; it seemed to express something quite different), in a way that pushed her to throw up the discussion and determine that as soon as they should get out of the park she would go off by herself;…

This is the beginning. Verena starts doubting herself. She does not want to marry Basil and she puts up a good fight, but in the end she has to give in. What Bernard Shaw calls 'the life force' has her in its grip.

Now you say that Verena does not reject Feminism, but only Olive's brand of feminism. Where are we shown her retaining any sort of feministic views? What type of feminism is she supposed to convert Basil to?

[Gladys]

She’s not the type of young woman who is so blinded by love that she has any illusions about changing the man she wants to marry.

This is a huge topic and I'll respond in a later post.

But this quote is the narrator giving us Olive's thoughts. They are not Basil's thoughts at all, but Olive trying to find reasons for Basil giving up his pursuit of Verena in New York. It goes on to say she was living in a fool's paradise. I don’t see how it proves your point.

Guilty as charged! You're right, I have misconstrued the context in more ways than one. And I should have been more cautious because Henry James, in my experience, at best gives whispered hints about his endings.

What I can say is that Henry James here foreshadows the ending through sentiments that Olive expresses but scarcely believes:

...after six months of courting and in spite of all her sympathy, her desire to do what people expected of her, she despised his opinions as much as the first day.

And mortification for Basil will come, but much later.

First of all, Verena is not all that truthful. It is Olive who is the truthful one. Verena lies by omission – “ It was not, after all, so easy to keep back only a little...” But to be fair, she is untruthful only because she’s so scared of Olive’s immense power for suffering. I don’t think it’s important, but you claimed she was unerringly truthful, so just pointing it out.

It is important. The whitest of white lies, the only secret she had in the world, is a typical Henry James decoy (he does exactly the same with Catherine in Washington Square). The point is that Verena never "lies" again, to anyone, in the entire novel! As to who paints Verena with angelic integrity, I would say that the first impression she creates on everyone is that of an angel. That's one reason audiences adore her, the Burrages fete her, Olive adopts her, and Basil befriends her. It's true, that in time, such impressions become less favourable. Less favourable because Verena is much deeper than anyone appreciates (the evidence here is clear), with the possible exception of father, Selah.

On first meeting Verena, Basil’s glowing assessment exemplifies the admiration she almost universally attracts. And Basil's judgement here is truer than he realises. So true that it explains much in the curious ending: Verena is inscrutable.

You stand apart, you are unique, extraordinary; you constitute a category by yourself. In you the elements have been mixed in a manner so felicitous that I regard you as quite incorruptible. I don't know where you come from nor how you come to be what you are, but you are outside and above all vulgarising influences.

You say: Olive who is the truthful one?

I [the narrator] have said that it was Miss Chancellor's plan of life not to lie, but such a plan was compatible with a kind of consideration for the truth which led her to shrink from producing it on poor occasions.

It’s Olive who has the intensity, the fixedness of purpose, the passionate dedication that you ascribe to Verena. No, I do not see Verena as insincere. She does earnestly believe in their cause, but it is a youthful enthusiasm dinned into her since childhood by others, and doesn’t go as deep as Olive’s.

You should not allow the ignorant speculation of others characters to influence your assessment of Verena. All textual evidence shows you are wrong about the depth of the passionate dedication of this the sweetest flower of character, and wrong in suggesting that her dedication is a little more than an artefact of her upbringing. Where in the novel is the hard evidence to support these propositions, which seems to me feeble rationalisations used to make sense of the ending for want of something better? Here is hard evidence:

[Verena] struck her [Olive] as the only person she had yet encountered who had exactly the same tenderness, the same pity, for women that she herself had.
-------
...that I [Verena] have dedicated my life; that there is something unspeakably dear to me.
-------
"No, I want to hate my liking. I want you to keep before me all the reasons why I should—many of them so fearfully important. Don't let me lose sight of anything! Don't be afraid I shall not be grateful when you remind me." That was one of the singular speeches that Verena made in the course of their constant discussion of the terrible question...

As she leaves the Boston Music Hall with Basil - we may surmise that - Verena is indeed grateful to Olive Chancellor.

Previously, she’s always met his opposing views with joking equanimity, but now suddenly she’s scared, not of Basil’s views, but of her own faith being shaken.

Verena appreciates Basil's impressive persuasive powers, and the obvious danger he presents to her. He is far more magnetic than the mesmeric Selah Tarrant. These are the very powers Miss Birdseye urges her to harness to the cause of women; and this task will become Verena's genuine vocation.

If she had been less afraid, she [Olive] would have read things more clearly; she would have seen that we don't run away from people unless we fear them and that we don't fear them unless we know that we are unarmed. Verena feared Basil Ransom now (though this time she declined to run); but now she had taken up her weapons, she had told Olive she was exposed, she had asked her to be her defence.

Leaving the Boston Music Hall, we can be certain that Verena is well trained for battle and armed, by Olive, to the hilt.

Now you say that Verena does not reject Feminism, but only Olive's brand of feminism. Where are we shown her retaining any sort of feministic views? What type of feminism is she supposed to convert Basil to?

This is a truly wonderful question and goes to the heart of the ending. It made me think long and hard. If Verena rejects Olive’s feminist vision, which isn’t really so bad, what is the greater good to which Verena aspires?

My gut reaction was: the feminism of Miss Birdseye, with Basil Ransom leading the charge. So yesterday I started looking for evidence. As brother of the fine philosopher and psychologist William James, I never underestimate the breadth of vision of Henry James. The following sentence is surely key to Verena's outlook:

[Selah Tarrant] looked at his child only from the point of view of the service she might render to humanity.

Olive wants the charismatic Verena to preach feminism to the converted and the wavering in the enlightened North, where slavery in America was first abandoned: a female preaching mainly to sympathetic, middle class females. Miss Birdseye inadvertently happens upon a radically different vision: the charismatic Basil preaching feminism to his reactionary brothers - black and white - in the deep South, that perennial den of prejudice and exploitation.

An eloquent Basil will bring enlightenment to Cotton Belt (Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana - where Miss Birdseye had long toiled) and not just to women. In future, it will be a man will delivering the liberating feminist gospel to men. Moreover, a white male Southerner will preach to the Southern blacks. Surely this is a big idea - way bigger than marrying for love and the vocation of "wife"!

How will Verena convert Basil to the women's cause? My guess is that she will achieve his conversion less through preaching to Basil than through acting out, like Miss Birdseye before her, a compassion for the oppressed, now legendary from that heroic age of New England life. The following are three wonderful passages (and I’m sure there are more) that I stumbled upon yesterday evening. These are the only references to tears, associated with Verena, apart from the closing sentence of the novel.

Ransom knew why it was that Verena had tears in her eyes as she looked up at her patient old friend [the dying Miss Birdseye]; she had spoken to him, often, during the last three weeks, of the stories Miss Birdseye had told her of the great work of her life, her mission, repeated year after year, among the Southern blacks. She had gone among them with every precaution, to teach them to read and write; she had carried them Bibles and told them of the friends they had in the North who prayed for their deliverance. Ransom knew that Verena didn't reproduce these legends with a view to making him ashamed of his Southern origin, his connexion with people who, in a past not yet remote, had made that kind of apostleship necessary; he knew this because she had heard what he thought of all that chapter himself; he had given her a kind of historical summary of the slavery question which left her no room to say that he was more tender to that particular example of human imbecility than he was to any other. But she had told him that this was what she would have liked to do—to wander, alone, with her life in her hand, on an errand of mercy, through a country in which society was arrayed against her; she would have liked it much better than simply talking about the right from the gas-lighted vantage of the New England platform. Ransom had replied simply "Balderdash!" it being his theory, as we have perceived, that he knew much more about Verena's native bent than the young lady herself. This did not, however, as he was perfectly aware, prevent her feeling that she had come too late for the heroic age of New England life, and regarding Miss Birdseye as a battered, immemorial monument of it. Ransom could share such an admiration as that, especially at this moment; he had said to Verena, more than once, that he wished he might have met the old lady in Carolina or Georgia before the war—shown her round among the negroes and talked over New England ideas with her; there were a good many he didn't care much about now, but at that time they would have been tremendously refreshing. Miss Birdseye had given herself away so lavishly all her life that it was rather odd there was anything left of her for the supreme surrender.

And a little earlier:

[Basil] allowed her, certainly, no illusion on the subject of the fate she should meet as his wife; he flung over it no rosiness of promised ease; he let her know that she should be poor, withdrawn from view, a partner of his struggle, of his severe, hard, unique stoicism. When he spoke of such things as these, and bent his eyes on her, she could not keep the tears from her own; she felt that to throw herself into his life (bare and arid as for the time it was) was the condition of happiness for her, and yet that the obstacles were terrible, cruel.

And in the beginning is a passage that shows Olive will be more right than she realises in thinking of Verena as the only person she had yet encountered who had exactly the same tenderness, the same pity, for women that she herself had.

it seemed to her [Olive] at times that she had been born to lead a crusade—the image of the unhappiness of women. The unhappiness of women! The voice of their silent suffering was always in her ears, the ocean of tears that they had shed from the beginning of time seemed to pour through her own eyes. Ages of oppression had rolled over them; uncounted millions had lived only to be tortured, to be crucified. They were her sisters, they were her own, and the day of their delivery had dawned. This was the only sacred cause...

[mona amon]

I think we have very different ways of interpreting things. Shall we just agree to disagree?

Anyway, I have enjoyed discussing this with you, in the process of which I re-read so many chapters and became much more familiar with the book, and much more appreciative of it, than I normally would have.

[Gladys]

The Bostonians ends with:

But though she was glad, he presently discovered that, beneath her hood, she was in tears. It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant, into which she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to shed.

Mona Amon has suggested Verena's tears, and tears to come, relate to a less than ideal marriage with Basil Ransom. Whereas I speculated that she was sorry to be leaving the feminist sisterhood to marry and live with the reactionary Southerner. It is neither!

Verena's tears are tears of mingled joy and compassion! She cries purely and simply in zealous anticipation of the opportunity she will now have to serve, like Miss Birdseye before her, among the poor and needy blacks in the racist and sexist South. Her tears are tears of love and compassion for the oppressed in Basil's home state of Mississippi.

Ransom knew why it was that Verena had tears in her eyes as she looked up at her patient old friend [the dying Miss Birdseye]; she had spoken to him, often, during the last three weeks, of the stories Miss Birdseye had told her of the great work of her life, her mission, repeated year after year, among the Southern blacks. She had gone among them with every precaution, to teach them to read and write; she had carried them Bibles and told them of the friends they had in the North who prayed for their deliverance. Ransom knew that Verena didn't reproduce these legends with a view to making him ashamed of his Southern origin, his connexion with people who, in a past not yet remote, had made that kind of apostleship necessary; he knew this because she had heard what he thought of all that chapter himself; he had given her a kind of historical summary of the slavery question which left her no room to say that he was more tender to that particular example of human imbecility than he was to any other. But she had told him that this was what she would have liked to do—to wander, alone, with her life in her hand, on an errand of mercy, through a country in which society was arrayed against her; she would have liked it much better than simply talking about the right from the gas-lighted vantage of the New England platform.

Incidentally, I no longer believe that Verena marries to convert Basil. She marries for love and for the opportunity to work and struggle with the needy and oppressed - predominately the blacks. Nevertheless, through Verena's peculiar influence and her selfless service to the oppressed, Basil will eventually be born again to play a leading role in the human rights movement, just as muddleheaded Miss Birdseye foresaw.

I think we have very different ways of interpreting things. Shall we just agree to disagree?

It's been fun corresponding and, overnight, even more pieces of the jigsaw fell into place as you can see. I may still post, but please don't feel obliged to respond. And eventually, I will post on why we have such different takes on the novel.

[Gladys]

Saint Verena was interested in serving the poor and used to offer them food. Moreover, she enjoyed serving the sick, especially those suffering from leprosy. She used to wash their wounds and put ointments on them, not fearing infection.

The names of characters in The Bostonians are making more sense at last.

Verena Tarrant heads South with Ransom to continue the great work of [Miss Birdseye's] life, her mission, repeated year after year, among the Southern blacks.

Basil Ransom's life - once Verena's influence has made its indelible mark on him - will be given as redemption for the imprisoned, enslaved, suffering or oppressed of Mississippi. He will make a living by his opinions, and his enlightened ideas will be embodied in national conduct.

Olive Chancellor sees the world, in a rather drab and jaundiced way, and from the narrow perspective of a feminist.

Mrs Adeline Luna is more upbeat than Olive but zany to the point of blindness. She is the first to utterly misrepresent Verena's motivation.

Miss Birdseye's perspective narrowed in her final years, but she could see Verena and Basil's future with the perspicacity of a hawk!

A great novel.

[hellsapoppin]

Does anyone else suspect that Olive may have feelings/intentions towards Verena that go beyond just friendship?

It is clear that Olive's interests in Verena are more than just Platonic. She claims to have recruited her as a spokeswoman for her feminist cause. But the reality is that she is romantically fond of her. She begs her thus: "“Will you be my friend, my friend of friends, beyond every one, everything, forever and ever?”" She then begs her not to marry.

How interesting that while Olive views men as enslavers of women, she has Verena in a slave like stranglehold by refusing to let her out of her sight. She evens pays the Tarrants to stay away from their daughter as she controls her every move. Verena cares for her but is not attracted to her sexually or romantically. She thought about leaving her but muses,


She had a vision of those dreadful years; she knew that Olive would never get over the disappointment. It would touch her in the point where she felt everything most keenly; she would be incurably lonely and eternally humiliated. It was a very peculiar thing, their friendship; it had elements which made it probably as complete as any (between women) that had ever existed. Of course it had been more on Olive’s side than on hers, she had always known that; but that, again, didn’t make any difference.

This novel is from the Gilded Age and a writer could not be very explicit in writing about illicit sexual matters. This is why Olive's sensitivities cannot be asserted more forcefully. By contrast, Basil Ransome can do so and succeeds in winning her over.

The gender politics in the book are very interesting. Olive says men enslave women - but she enslaves Verena. Olive says women are deprived of equal opportunity. But Dr Mary Prance is a successful physician who does not squawk about life's unfairness ever what it might be - she is a doer, not a whiner. Olive says the world is unfair to women but she is wealthy as is her sister Mrs. Adeline Luna [in fact, the book is filled with many female characters who all have one thing in common: they are ALL wealthy!]. Basil is a man who lost his entire fortune, was forced to fight and kill in an unjust war, and lives in poverty in NY. Olive's speeches are heard in public. Basil has terrible trouble getting his writings published. Olive has been given everything she has ever had in life for free and feels that it takes someone like Verena to do her speaking for her. Basil stands up and does his own work.


I felt the book had a great many merits. It would have been very interesting to see what the book looked like if it had been written in the 20th century where same sex arrangements could be discussed more explicitly. Bottom line is that Olive's interest in Verena was more than just a business or ideological arrangement and one that was definitely not Platonic.

[hellsapoppin]

I have just understood the blatant foreshadowing by Mrs Luna, early in the novel. Ransom is the lion tamer, who energetically tames both Olive and Verena by the end of the novel. But as Olive has well learned, the taming of gifted Verena is problematic in the extreme.

"But, mark my words," said Mrs. Luna, "she [Verena] will give Olive the greatest cut she has ever had in her life. She will run off with some lion-tamer; she will marry a circus-man!"

In The Bostonians, the wedded Verena will ultimately give the central character, the circus-man Basil Ransom, the greatest cut of all!

Some of the large amount of money Olive gave to the Tarrants will likely go to the Ransoms as a dowry. Thus, Olive loses out in more ways than one in the end.

[hellsapoppin]

The wealthy and privileged Mrs Luna said "She will run off with some lion-tamer". She sizes him up thusly,

"Mrs. Luna glanced at him from head to foot, and gave a little smiling sigh, as if he had been a long sum in addition. And, indeed, he was very long, Basil Ransom, and he even looked a little hard and discouraging, like a column of figures, in spite of the friendly face which he bent upon his hostess's deputy, and which, in its thinness, had a deep dry line, a sort of premature wrinkle, on either side of the mouth. He was tall and lean, and dressed throughout in black; his shirt-collar was low and wide, and the triangle of linen, a little crumpled, exhibited by the opening of his waistcoat, was adorned by a pin containing a small red stone. In spite of this decoration the young man looked poor--as poor as a young man could look who had such a fine head and such magnificent eyes. Those of Basil Ransom were dark, deep, and glowing; his head had a character of elevation which fairly added to his stature; it was a head to be seen above the level of a crowd, on some judicial bench or political platform, or even on a bronze medal. His forehead was high and broad, and his thick black hair, perfectly straight and glossy, and without any division, rolled back from it in a leonine manner.''


While she and all the other women were rich and privileged he was poor but "leonine" or lion like ~ dignified& regal in manner and appearance.

[hellsapoppin]

Miss Birdseye had given herself away so lavishly all her life that it was rather odd there was anything left of her for the supreme surrender.

Miss Birdseye was modeled after Elizabeth Peabody:


CAMEO-Elizabeth-Peabody-GettyImages-236x300.jpg


https://www.historynet.com/elizabeth...y-an-old-soul/



Miss Peabody never married and was described as, "“desultory, dreamy, but insatiable in her love for knowledge and for helping others to it.” Her gravestone at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, notes: Every humane cause had her sympathy, and many her direct aid.'' We have her to thank for developing the idea of kindergardens!

[hellsapoppin]

Dr Mary Edwards Walker - source for Dr Mary Prance:


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...cropped%29.jpg



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker



Mary Edwards Walker, M.D. (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919), commonly referred to as Dr. Mary Walker, was an American abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war and surgeon.[1] She is the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor.[2]

In 1855, she earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College in New York,[3] married and started a medical practice. She attempted to join the Union Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War and was denied. She served as a surgeon at a temporary hospital in Washington, D.C. before being hired by Union Forces and assigned to Army of the Cumberland and later the 52nd Ohio Infantry, becoming the first female surgeon in the US Army.[4][5] She was captured by Confederate forces[3] after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, Virginia until released in a prisoner exchange.

After the war, she was approved for the Medal of Honor, for her efforts to treat the wounded in battle and across enemy lines during the Civil War. Notably, the award was not expressly given for gallantry in action at that time, and in fact was the only military decoration during the Civil War. Walker is the only woman to receive the medal and one of only eight civilians to receive it. Her name was deleted from the Army Medal of Honor Roll in 1917 (along with over 900 other, male MOH recipients); however, it was restored in 1977.[3] After the war, she was a writer and lecturer supporting the women's suffrage movement until her death in 1919.




A truly fascinating person!