Category: TPIP Profiles

TPIP Profile #8: Jean Ross, Far From Fiction 

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Jean Iris Ross Cockburn 

Born: 7th May 1911

Died: 27th April 1973

Country of Origin: England, UK 

In a nutshell: Best known as the inspiration for the apolitical and hedonistic Sally Bowles in the novels of Christopher Isherwood and the musical Cabaret, Jean Ross’ wild life took her from the Berlin cabaret clubs of the Weimar Republic to the war-torn streets of Madrid as a correspondent. 

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Have you seen the musical Cabaret or read the novels of Christopher Isherwood? Maybe you’ve heard Liza Minelli belting the title track as the Kit Kat Club’s Sally Bowles? Did you know Sally Bowles was based on a real person? This was author Christopher Isherwood’s friend, the then 19 year-old Jean Ross. When she was living in Berlin she worked as a cabaret club singer before the political situation in Germany made her and her bohemian circle up and leave. But, this is only the start of the life and times of Jean Ross so let’s take a deeper look into this often misrepresented figure. 

Born in Egypt in 1911 to British parents, Jean Ross left Africa to be brought up in England. She was a vastly intelligent but often bored child and hated school. At the age of 16 she pretended to be pregnant so she would be expelled. Her parents then sent her to a Swiss finishing school but Jean went rogue and enrolled into the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art before dropping out, getting a small part in a movie and moving to Berlin to pursue an acting career. 

At this point in history, the Weimar Republic led Germany. This was the German government from the end of the First World War in 1918 to the accession of the Nazi party in 1933. This period was one of cultural and artistic revolution but also of hyperinflation and mass unemployment due to the war and the Great Depression. Whilst working as a cabaret singer and small-time actress in Berlin in this unsettled Germany, Jean Ross met British-American author Christoper Isherwood, a man who would have a huge impact on her life. 

Isherwood had been drawn to Berlin to explore the night life, especially the gay clubs and cabarets. After their first meeting, in which Jean Ross spoke openly about her sexual conquests, they became close friends and began living together. Through her connection to Isherwood, Ross became familiar with many other gay male writers in Isherwood’s circle of friends. 

It was around this time that Ross entered into a relationship with actor Peter van Eyck but soon they parted and Ross discovered she was pregnant. Isherwood helped her get an abortion but due to complications, Ross spent time in hospital recovering from what turned out to be a botched abortion. Through this time, the poverty in Germany and Hitler’s influence in the local attitudes towards minorities, Jews in particular, was turning Ross and Isherwood’s beloved Berlin into a much darker environment, though it took them time to see it. Ross left Germany for the UK in 1932. Isherwood stayed a while longer due to his relationship with the German Heinz Neddermeyer but after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933, he and Neddermeyer followed Ross. 

Back in London, Ross began work as a theatre and film actress, model and reporter. The latter of those roles was secured through her relationship with communist journalist Claud Cockburn. He greatly influenced Ross’ political leanings and helped her get a job writing for left-wing newspaper the Daily Worker. Not forgetting her friends though, Ross used her connections in the British film industry to help both herself and Isherwood get jobs as translators. Isherwood would soon thrive in the film industry but also turned back to writing novels. He revisited his diaries from his time in Berlin and wrote a novella called Sally Bowles inspired by his friends and experiences from the Weimar Republic. It was apparent though that Sally Bowles was very much inspired by Jean Ross, especially as her abortion appeared as a scene in the book. Ross was initially reluctant to give Isherwood permission to publish the novella due to abortion still being illegal and a taboo subject in Britain at the time but eventually she relented and Sally Bowles became a huge hit. 

Ross continued her work in the film industry by writing film criticism in the Daily Worker and even serving as the General Secretary of the British Workers’ Film and Photo League which sought to make films with an anti-capitalist focus. 

Things soon changed again for Ross when she starting working in Spain as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. She worked there with Cockburn and her lover John Cornford until Cornford died fighting as part of the Spanish communists’ militia. Over the next few years, Ross worked as a war correspondent for the Daily Express. She remained in Spain despite the bombings and often reported directly from the front lines. She witnessed the Siege of Madrid and returned to England just two months before giving birth to her daughter Sarah by Cockburn. Cockburn left Ross and their daughter for another woman just three months later.

Ross moved to Hertfordshire with her mother and daughter and devoted herself to raising Sarah whilst never losing her strong socialist opinions. She died in 1973 from cancer. 

It was only after Ross’ death that Isherwood finally confirmed Sally Bowles had indeed been based on Ross. Sarah Caudwell, Ross’ daughter, wrote an article in 1986 shedding some light on how Ross truly felt about the connection. The article shares how Ross felt frustration over the fame the portrayal gave her, how journalists wanted to know about her sexual exploits and not anything about the work she had done in her political and journalistic career. Understandably so, whether you agree with her political stance or not, you can’t argue that, though Sally Bowles is a fascinating character, every moment of Jean Ross’ life following her departure from Berlin shows her to politically-driven and deeply concerned for the welfare of others, two traits that you don’t see in Sally Bowles. In fact, there is some reason to believe that Isherwood, with all the success and fame, was perhaps projecting his own lack of understanding of the political climate in 1930s Germany onto Sally.  

In Sarah Caudwell’s article she said that her mother “may well, at 19, have been less informed about politics than Isherwood, five or six years older; but, when the Spanish war came and the fascists were bombing Madrid, it was she, not Isherwood, who was there to report it.”… which seems to sum up the situation pretty well. 

Thanks for reading!

*Image sourced through Wikimedia Commons

TPIP Profile #7: Evelyn Nesbit, From Rags to Riches to the Witness Stand

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Evelyn Nesbit

Born: 25th December 1884 (possibly 1885)

Died: 17th January 1967

Country of Origin: USA

In a nutshell: Both a model and actress, Evelyn is best known nowadays for her involvement in the murder trial of Stanford White. But, even before being rocked by scandal, her face was one of the best-known of her day. 

*Trigger warning: Sexual assault 

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In January 1907, a court case began which the press of the time called ‘the trial of the century’. Evelyn Nesbit would have been around 22 years old when she appeared as a star witness. She told the court about how she had been sexually assaulted by the architect Stanford White. At the turn of the century, it was still rare for accusations of sexual assault to be shared in court. However, this wasn’t the crime that had brought Evelyn to the witness stand. She was to give evidence in defence of White’s murderer, her husband, Harry K. Thaw. It was a complicated and highly publicised case that would lead to Evelyn’s cataclysmic rise to fame to take a dramatic turn.

Evelyn was born around 1884 in Pennsylvania. Her exact year of birth is unknown, Evelyn herself even said she wasn’t sure due to the records being lost in a fire and her mother, Evelyn Florence, possibly changing her year of birth depending on the requirements of child labour laws at the time. She grew up with a love of books and learning but her father, an attorney, died when Evelyn was 10 and the family fell into poverty. 

Evelyn, her mother and younger brother moved around for a while before settling in Philadelphia and all three of them got work in a department store. One day, when Evelyn was about 14, she was spotted by an artist who asked Evelyn to pose for her. This was Evelyn’s first introduction into what was to become her profession. The family then relocated again, this time to New York and soon enough Evelyn was posing for various high-profile artists of the time. Possibly the most notable of these was James Carroll Beckwith, whose patron was none other than millionaire John Jacob Aster. 

Evelyn’s mother was thrown into the role of manager for her daughter as she became more and more in demand. She transitioned easily from the star of portraits to the star of photographs and became a renowned fashion model. She starred in advertising campaigns and soon got a role as a chorus line girl in the Broadway play, Florodora. It was around this time that rising star Evelyn was introduced to Stanford White. He was an architect known for working on various big projects, including the second iteration of Madison Square Garden. White and Evelyn began spending time together and he lavished her and family with expensive gifts and paid for their accommodation. Evelyn was already the subject of much press attention at the time and stories circulated about their relationship. One story that became particular popular was that White had a red velvet swing hanging from the ceiling of his apartment that he had allegedly pushed Evelyn on during her first visit to his place. The press would later give her the nickname ‘the girl in the red velvet swing’. During this time, Evelyn would have been around 16, White was in his late 40s.

After a while, Evelyn and White’s relationship came to an end and she became associated with other men, including the millionaire Harry K. Thaw. This was during the time when she took on a speaking role in the play, The Wild Rose. Thaw and Evelyn married in 1905 and they relocated to quiet Pittsburgh. 

It was what happened next, during a visit to New York, that would dominate any mention of her name in history from this point on. At a performance at the Madison Square Garden rooftop, Thaw shot White dead at close range. 

In court, Thaw pleaded temporary insanity, claiming that he was acting in defence of his wife who had been raped by White. Evelyn was even brought forward to take the stand and she shared the story of what had happened to her at the hands of White in detail. The media of the time were completely absorbed in the ‘crime of the century’ and for the first time in US history, the jury had to be sequestered. Eventually, Thaw was found not guilty and was interned in a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison. 

Evelyn was supported through the court proceedings by Thaw’s family but once the trials were done with, they cut her off financially and Evelyn made her own way through work as a vaudeville star and silent film actress. She had a son called Russell in 1910 who she claimed with Thaw’s child after his conception during a visit to where Thaw was hospitalised. Throughout the rest of his life, Thaw would deny paternity. 

Thaw was let out of from hospital in 1915, the same year that Evelyn divorced him. Not long after, Thaw committed violent and sexual abuse of 19-year-old Frederick Gump and, after another plea of insanity, was placed in an asylum. 

For a time, Evelyn was married to her dance partner, Jack Clifford, but the marriage was short-lived as he couldn’t handle her fame. Evelyn would struggle with finances and addiction for many years. She worked as a technical advisor on a highly fictionalised film about her life, ‘The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing’, released in 1955 and died in California in 1967. 

Evelyn is also featured in the book, musical and film, Ragtime. 

Now you’ve read her story, what do you think? Was Evelyn a fame and money-hungry queen of scandal and ‘girl in the red velvet swing’ or a mistreated teenager and abuse survivor who had to grow up too fast to support her family? You decide. 

TPIP Profiles #6: The History Lover and Maker, Halet Çambel  

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Halet Çambel

Born: 27th August 1916

Death: 12th January 2014

Country of Origin: Turkey and Germany

In a nutshell: The history-loving Halet Çambel is one of Turkey’s best-loved archaeologists for her strive to preserve the country’s key archaeological sites. She was also the first Muslim to compete in the Olympic Games in 1936. Oh, and she snubbed Hitler while she was there, she really couldn’t be more iconic. 

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Not every trailblazer knows they’re on the right side of history when they’re living through it but I like to think Halet Çambel knew exactly that when she famously turned down a meeting with Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games. But, let’s back up a bit. 

Halet was born in Berlin to Hasan Cemil Çambel and Remziye Hanım in 1916. Her father had links to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the much revered and highly respected first president of Turkey. One of the many key social reforms Atatürk championed was women’s suffrage and he granted women the vote during his presidency. Halet returned to Istanbul to study and fell in love with history. She decided to study archaeology at university in France and took up fencing after reading books about knights. 

It was her skills in fencing and the new freedoms granted to women in Turkey that allowed Halet to journey back to Germany for the 1936 Olympic Games where she became the first Muslim woman to compete in the Games. 

By this time in history, the Nazi party was in power in Germany and though the worst was yet to come from the Nazi regime, snippets of what lied ahead were already starting to show. For example, this was the Games were Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes of all time, won four gold medals yet was denied a hand shake from Hitler due to his black skin. 

So, when Halet and fellow fencer, Suat Fetgeri Aseni Tarı, were invited to introduce themselves to Hitler, they both refused on political grounds. Halet later said she wouldn’t even have gone to compete in the first place if the Turkish government hadn’t asked her to.

However, it’s not just her sporting career and snubbing one of history’s most horrific individuals that makes her name hit the history books. She was also a vocal advocate for preserving Turkey’s history and archaeology sites. She worked on Karatepe, a Hittites fortress, alongside German archaeologist Helmuth Theodor Bossert. The Hittites were Anatolian people who built an empire all the way back in the second millennium BCE. In her role, she took part in deciphering Hittite hieroglyphics. 

That’s not all though. She also campaigned for the artefacts of the site to remain in place and for the site to be established as an open air museum. She fought for the preservation of archeological sites in Turkey by the Ceyhan River and came to be one of Turkey’s top archaeologists. 

Halet married poet, journalist and architect, Nail Çakırhan, and they stayed by each others’ side for 70 years until Çakırhan’s death in 2008. Halet herself died just a few years later in 2014. 

TPIP Profiles #5: The Controversial La Malinche 

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Malintzin, La Malinche and Doña Marina

Born: Approx. 1500

Died: 1529

Country of origin: Mexico

In a nutshell: La Malinche is a controversial figure in Mexico. It’s arguably her work as an interpreter for the colonialist Hernan Cortés that led to the destruction of the Aztec Empire. But, was she a cunning traitor of her nation or a slave girl looking for her survival?

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The Aztec Empire was formed in 1428 after three of Mexico’s most powerful city-states formed the Triple Alliance. Less than a century later, the empire was lost to Spanish rule after Hernán Cortés’ invasion. At Cortés’ right hand side was a woman known as La Malinche, a Nahua slave who played one of the biggest roles in leading her own people to destruction. Let’s have a look at why. 

Aside from being born in modern-day Mexico in roughly 1500, very little is known about the girl that would be known as La Malinche. Even her birth name is unknown. There is a theory that her name may have been ‘Malinal’ (meaning ‘grass’) and some even believe that she was the daughter of an Aztec chief. Whatever her origins were, what is certain is that she became a slave, either through being sold by her own family or through kidnapping. She was then sold on and lived in several different locations over time. 

Meanwhile, Hernán Cortés was preparing for a Spanish expedition to Mexico to follow up the previous discoveries of Christopher Columbus but at the last moment, the expedition was cancelled. Cortés mutinied against his orders and journeyed to the Yucatán Peninsula in 1519. It was in his next stop, Tabasco, where his story collides with La Malinche.

In response to the invaders, the Chontal Mayans of Potonchán offered gold and twenty slave women to Cortés and his growing army. Amongst these women was La Malinche. Each of the women was baptised and La Malinche was given a new Catholic name, Marina. Allegedly, Cortés gave La Malinche to one of his men before realising her potential in assisting his conquests.

Due to living across the peninsula in her years of slavery to the Mayans (prior to her slavery to Cortés), La Malinche developed a knack for language acquisition. Even greater than that, she knew more than the words to say but the tone and inflection to use and how to correctly address both the Maya and Nuhua (in this case, Aztec) people. And, soon enough she learnt Spanish too.

Cortés came to know of La Malinche’s linguistic value when she was able to speak Nahuatl to the emissaries of Moctezuma, Tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztecs. Cortés then made La Malinche both his personal concubine and interpreter through his conquests. Due to her powerful position and her skills in politics and negotiation, La Malinche was soon given a title of respect by the Spanish conquistadors and was known as ‘Doña Marina’, while the Aztecs gave her the honorific title ‘Malintzin’.

As Cortés set about a play to seize control of the Aztec Empire, La Malinche was at the helm, speaking and negotiating with individual city-states tired with Moctezuma and the Triple Alliance. They gained friends and foes through Mexico until Cortés set his sights on taking Tenochtitlan, the  capital city of the Aztec Empire. 

In one interesting alleged part of Mexico’s colonial history, on the way to Tenochtitlan, the Spanish conquistadors passed through Cholula. The city was loyal to Moctezuma and in one version of the story, La Malinche uncovered a secret Aztec plot to attack the Spanish forces when they reached the city. In this version of events, Cortés and the conquistadors attacked Cholula before its people could swing first. However, there is a theory that La Malinche had little to do with this and the Spanish lied about Moctezuma planning an attack to justify the Cholula Massacre. Whether La Malinche fed intelligence back to Cortés in this instance or not is therefore unclear but this is one of two recorded times that she supposedly warned Cortés of Aztec conspiracies against him.

The conquistadors continued on to Tenochtitlan and there Cortés was welcomed by Moctezuma but Cortés decided to take him captive. Then, Cortés got distracted by Spanish forces sending another conquistador, Pánfilo de Narváez, to Mexico to intercept the wayward Cortés (remember I said Cortés’ mission was pulled at the last moment but he went anyway?). But, Narváez was no match for Cortés and after a skirmish by the coast, Narváez was also taken captive by Cortés. 

Back in Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma died in custody and Cortés lead a siege against the city, cutting off their food supplies. Between that and the impact of the Spanish introducing smallpox to Mexico, the Aztec Empire fell on the 13th August 1521. Despite his previous indiscretions, Cortés was officially recognised by Spain as the governor of ‘New Spain’.

But, that’s not quite the end of the story and we’ve just had two full paragraphs where I haven’t mentioned the lady this post is all about so what of La Malinche? As a concubine to Cortés, she gave birth to his first son, Martín, in approximately 1523. She may have had other children with Cortés but the sources are unclear on the details of other children. In 1524, Cortés led a new mission to Honduras and La Malinche once again came with him. She married Juan Jaramillo and through this union, she was freed of slavery. She had some more children with Juan, as before, how many is unclear, and allegedly died in 1529 from smallpox aged about 29. However, even this death is refuted by other sources.

So, that’s the life of La Malinche. It’s filled with alleged stories, possible lies and a life in slavery to the Mayans, Aztecs or Spanish. Her name has become synonymous with ‘traitor’ in Mexico due to her turning on her own people and aiding in their destruction. However, it was the Aztecs who sold her into Mayan slavery in the first place so what loyalty would she have had to them anyway? Plus, it seems highly likely she received much better treatment than she would have done from the Spanish by being their interpreter. Were any of her decisions really her own choice? How many were merely acts of survival?

The real irony is that for a woman who made history for her language skills, we have nothing in her own words to make sense of her story. It’s all lost to history. In Mexico, La Malinche remains a figure of controversy to this day but who’s say without her, the Aztec Empire wouldn’t have still fallen. What is for certain, however, is that Cortés himself was aware of how valuable she was to his success and her huge role in one of the world’s most renowned empires cannot be denied.

TPIP Profiles #4: Florence Balcombe, Real-Life Vampire Slayer

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Florence Balcombe/Stoker

Born: 17th July 1858

Died: 25th May 1937

Country of origin: Ireland and England, UK

In a nutshell: Florence Balcombe was a savvy businesswoman who fought tooth and nail to slay the vampire Count Orlok and protect the rights of her late husband’s masterpiece. 

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Have you heard of Nostferatu? A German horror film way back from the days of silent cinema? If not, don’t worry, put a pin (or should it be stake?) in that for now and we’ll circle back to it later.

First, let me tell you a little bit about Florence Balcombe. She was born in Cornwall in 1858 to a military family but then moved to Ireland at age two. As she grew up, she was considered a real beauty and became the subject of many art pieces, including a sketch by her then-boyfriend, Oscar Wilde (yes, the one you’re thinking of). 

This is a quote from Wilde that describes just what he thought of her:

“I am just going out to bring an exquisitely pretty girl to afternoon service in the Cathedral. She is just seventeen with the most perfectly beautiful face I ever saw and not a sixpence of money. I will show you her photograph when I see you next.”

However, Florence and Wilde’s relationship wasn’t built to last and two years into their courtship, Florence moved on to another famous Dublin resident with a name you might recognise. Florence and Bram Stoker married in 1878 and subsequently moved to London so that Bram could follow his theatrical ambitions by taking the job as a manager at the Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End (now the home of The Lion King but not then obviously, they just had regular Hamlet in the late 1800s). 

Wilde was initially hurt by Florence’s decision but eventually they came to be good friends and the newly married Stokers had a happy marriage by all accounts. Bram flourished in his role and became friends with leading Victorian actor Sir Henry Irving. Allegedly they even bonded over both having wives with the name ‘Florence’ since it had been popularised in recent decades due to a certain Lady with the Lamp. The Stokers even named their only child after their friend and had him christened ‘Irving Noel Thornley Stoker’. 

It was during Bram’s time working at the Lyceum that he began working on his novel, Dracula. The character was said to be inspired both by the legendarily ruthless fifteenth century ruler Vlad the Impaler and Bram’s old buddy Irving. 

Unfortunately, the novel suffered limited success and critical disdain after it was published in 1897 and as Bram aged he experienced many health problems. Due to Bram’s poor health, Florence cared for her husband and took charge of family affairs. Bram even remarked to his brother that “she had to do all the bookkeeping and find the money to live on – God only knows how she managed”.

It was after Bram’s death in 1912 that Florence’s business insight really sharpened. After the discovery of a discarded chapter from the original book, Florence had this published as extra content. Then she sold the rights of the book in various countries. Despite the initial critical resistance, the more people that read Dracula or saw an adaptation on stage, the more Bram’s terrifying villain was starting to solidify his place as a horror icon.

It was how Florence took on sinister spook Count Orlok, the vampire villain of the 1922 movie Nosferatu, that really got people talking though. Nosferatu, made by a German film studio called Prana, had many similarities to Dracula but no rights or permissions had been sought prior to the film’s release. So, Florence, as the rights holder of Dracula, took Prana to court. A three-year legal battle followed with the Society of Authors flying to Florence’s side. Eventually, Florence won the case. Prana ended up declaring bankruptcy and every copy of Nosferatu was to be destroyed.

However, as Florence should know from her husband’s book, it’s pretty hard to slay a vampire and despite the claim that all copies had been destroyed, the film resurfaced a few years later and is now a cult classic and staple of early silent horror movies. You just can’t kill the undead, Flo. 

To find out more about Florence, head to the Women’s Museum of Ireland website. Image credit goes to Merlin Holland, the picture was drawn by Oscar Wilde.

TPIP Profiles #3: The Fearless Mary Seacole

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Mary Seacole

Born: 23rd November 1805

Died: 14th May 1881

Country of origin: Jamaica and England, UK

In a nutshell: Mary Secole was a nurse with an epic drive to help others. She is best known for her time as a war nurse on the frontlines of battle and for turning her incredible life into a Victorian bestseller.

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Mary Seacole was a healer with plenty of bottle. From working with the sick in a cholera epidemic to healing on the frontlines of war, Seacole certainly wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary (and then some!) to help others. She is best known now for her time as a nurse in the Crimean War though she’s not usually the nurse people tend to most closely associate with this particular conflict. Whilst Florence Nightingale did some wonderful things for nursing and we’ll definitely tell her story at a later point, I want to put Mary Seacole first because more people need to know her story.

Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a white Scottish lieutenant and her mother was a black boarding house manager. At this point in history, slavery had yet to be abolished but she was born into ‘freedom’ which meant her rights were still greatly restricted as a mixed race woman. As a child, Seacole developed a love of medicine from her mother who was known locally as ‘The Doctress’. She practised Jamaican folk medicine on her dolls and pets and met many injured soldiers from helping at her mother’s boarding house. Soon enough, she was heading on a career path in nursing and took a trip abroad to learn more. 

She travelled to London, Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas and developed her medical knowledge more and more along the way. After returning to Jamaica in 1826, Seacole went on to meet her husband Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole and the two married in 1836. However, Edwin became ill and despite Mary’s nursing, he died only years into their marriage. Her mother died not long after and Seacole suffered greatly with the grief. 

She was still in Jamaica when the cholera epidemic came and she began treating sufferers at her mother’s boarding house, revamped due to a fire. In 1851, Seacole travelled to Cruces in Panama and the cholera epidemic followed. She treated the cholera victims in the area until eventually catching the illness herself. She recovered and returned to Kingston in 1853 where she began treating those with yellow fever. It was during this time that Seacole was asked to treat the soldiers at Up-Park Camp, British army headquarters in Jamaica. 

News soon reached Seacole of the outbreak of the Crimean War all the way in eastern Europe and she felt compelled to help the injured soldiers. She travelled to Britain once again and asked the Home Office if she could be enlisted as an army nurse but was denied. In her autobiography, Seacole herself questions whether her rejection from both the Home Office and the Crimean Fund, a fund-raising campaign to support the injured troops, was down to racism. However, Seacole was determined to help those in need and be reunited with her ‘sons’, the British soldiers she’d healed previously, and she funded her own trip to the Crimea. When she got there, she developed the British Hotel with her late husband’s relative, Thomas Day. The hotel treated the sick and wounded close to the frontlines and news of her kindness and bravery made its way back to British shores.

Despite her fame, Seacole returned to Britain at the end of the war practically penniless. However, those she had saved weren’t so quick to forget her good deeds and countless letters were written into the media of the time thanking her for her care and donations started coming in to support her financially. She also generated funds from her autography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole, a bestseller of the time.

Seacole moved back to Jamaica for a short while before settling in London. She had friends in high places at this time and even had a bust created of her by Queen Victoria’s nephew. She died in 1881 and her name fell into obscurity for many years. Her story has been given much more love and attention in recent times as more black and mixed race history is brought into the spotlight. A statue of her was placed in front of St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 2016.

To learn more about Seacole, visit the Mary Seacole Trust website. Thank you for reading.

Credit to the National Portrait Gallery for the Mary Seacole portrait (painted by Albert Charles Challen)

TPIP Profiles #2: Enheduanna (Poet, Princess and Priestess)

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Enheduanna

Born & Died: 23rd Century BCE

Country of Origin: The city of Ur in modern day Iraq

In a nutshell: Enheduanna was a poet, princess and priestess whose particular claim to fame is being the writer of the oldest texts by a named author in world history. That’s kind of a big deal, right?! 

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Enheduanna lived in the city of Ur (in modern day Iraq) in Mesopotamia all the way back in the 23rd century BCE. That’s an almost mind-bending length of time ago so what makes her iconic enough for her name to have made it through the centuries to now? Well, here’s a little known fact. The oldest texts by a named author in history were written by a woman. I can’t be the only one a little bit chuffed about that!

This woman was Enheduanna, a poet, princess and priestess of the Akkadian Empire and from all those alliterative jobs she had (in the English language anyway), it’s clear she was a busy woman. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure she’d qualify as a #girlboss by today’s standard. 

Enheduanna was the daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, the first leader of the Akkadian Empire and possibly the world’s first ever emperor so this pretty epic girl had a pretty epic lineage. Little is known of her family life or childhood but what is known is that she was given a place of great honour in her position as high priestess of the cult of Nanna. Both patron to the city-state of Ur and god of wisdom, Nanna was a moon deity worshipped in Mesopotamia. However, Enheduanna’s poems show a particular devotion to Nanna’s daughter Inanna, goddess of love, beauty, sex and war. For reference, the Greek equivalents of Inanna are thought to be a combination of Aphrodite and Athena. 

Enheduanna’s position as high priestess continued through the reigns of her brothers Rimush and Manishtushu. However, one of her poems, The Exaltation of Inanna, details her enforced exile by someone known as Lugalanne, a possible enemy of her nephew Naram-Sin. I need to pause to tell you a little bit about Naram-Sin as he is an odd figure in history. He is considered the ruler of the Akkadian Empire when it was at its strongest and defied himself so that he not only held the title of king but also god of the four corners, as in the four corners of the world… essentially Naram-Sin classed himself god of the entire world. Aim high, I guess. 

Back to Enheduanna though as we need to talk more about her writing. She wrote several poems and 42 hymns and these had such a lasting impact that she practically set the bar for religious writing, and just about any writing really, for centuries to come. Some even believe the her lasting influence can be found in the Old Testament and the writings of Homer. 

All knowledge of Edheduanna seemed lost to time until 1927 when British archaeologist Sir Leonard Wooley discovered a disk that held both Enheduanna’s name and a carving of her likeness. I’d love to tell you more about one particular member of Sir Wooley’s excavation team, his wife, Katherine, who inspired an Agatha Christie character, but that’s a story for another time. 

As both high priestess, an incredibly powerful and respected position for her time, and poet, Enheduanna made her lasting impact on history. It’s also worth noting the impact she had on literature. The very first uses of written language date way back to ancient Mesopotamia three thousand years BCE. However, the written word came in the form of note taking for the merchants of the time to keep track of their finances and dealings. Enheduanna was the individual that took written language away from being a tool of necessity and turned it into a means of self-expression and worship. So, to answer my own question from the beginning, yeah, Enheduanna and her impact on literature is definitely a big humungous deal.

Thank you for reading. Just a little disclaimer that I’m not very familiar with the history of Mesopotamia but I’ve done my best with researching on this because it was a story too good not to tell. If any of the facts are a little off, please feel free to let me know. For more info on Enheduanna and her influence, check out this amazing TED-Ed video.

TPIP Profiles #1: Mary Wollstonecraft

Georgia HazeLeave a comment

Name: Mary Wollstonecraft

Born: 27th April 1759

Died: 10th September 1797

Country of origin: England, UK

In a nutshell: Mary Wollstonecraft is one of history’s best-known proto-feminists. As a writer, she is most famous her publication, A Vindication on the Rights of Woman 🙌

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‘I plead for my sex, not for myself’

When you learn about the lives of women in the past, it’s not hard to see how early feminist ideas were starting to ignite, even decades before the first women’s suffrage movement. One of the first epic rally cries for gender equality was committed to paper fearlessly by arguably the best-loved and most renowned proto-feminist in Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft.

Wollstonecraft was no stranger to inequality. Even as a child, she saw the unfairness in her brother being able to attend school full-time while her education wasn’t a priority for her family. She was determined to learn though and by the time she was 25, she had co-founded a school for girls in London. Unfortunately, the school was short-lived and closed after the death of her co-founder and good friend, Fanny Blood. She then found work as a governess for some time before making it as a writer. 

Although her experience at the school hadn’t lasted, it did lead to the first of Wollstonecraft’s bold treatises, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Wollstonecraft was a keen advocate for gender equality in education and firmly believed women were just as intelligent as men. She even claimed that her theory could be proven if men and women were given the same lessons. Her work saw her gain a place among some of the great thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment and during this time she thrived, both from her new-found circle of friends and from the sea of change gripping Western Europe and North America. The French Revolution was a hot topic in the UK, as was US Independence. Not everyone was a fan, however. Edmund Burke, an Irish politician and writer, wrote his Reflections on the Revolution in France, condemning the movement, and Wollstonecraft simply wasn’t having it. She fired back with A Vindication on the Rights of Men, a text which rejects classism and hereditary wealth and, for all intents and purposes, encourages republicanism. At the time of its publication, the book passed through the hands of all the speakers, thinkers and writers of the day and became a hit. However, only in its second edition did Wollstonecraft’s name appear on the cover. And, the idea of a woman writing so scandalous a text put a spanner in the works for all those holding up her writing as a call to arms for liberty and equality among men.

So, how was Wollstonecraft to react to all the controversy? She wrote a follow-up called A Vindication on the Rights of Woman where she pushed her message of equality even further to not only include men of all backgrounds but women as well, a point certainly not ignored in her former writing but taking centre stage in this one. It’s also this book that she has become most revered for. The book celebrated professional women and insists on the importance of equal education between men and women.

At the time, Wollstonecraft’s book was mostly well-received, there were a few critics but she had earned the respect of her contemporaries and the book became a key text for women aspiring to see change in their future. As I say, this book came decades before the first Women’s Suffrage movement but it wouldn’t be surprising if it had something to do with it. 

Back to Wollstonecraft herself though as, despite her success in writing, her life was actually quite tragic and, as you can see from the start of this post, she sadly died quite young. Wollstonecraft wasn’t just unconventional in her political beliefs, she also lived a rather scandalous life for her time. She had left English shores for Paris whilst in her early thirties, began a relationship with an American called Gilbert Imlay and became pregnant with his daughter. Imlay, however, had moved on from Wollstonecraft and showed no interest in their child, a daughter called Fanny. Wollstonecraft was heartbroken by the rejection and even ventured to Scandinavia to work on business for Imlay in an attempt to win him back. She published a travel book about the experience of travelling to Sweden, Norway and Denmark off the back of his trip. 

Wollstonecraft returned to London after her travels expecting to be warmly received by Imlay but this was not the case. In her despair, she attempted suicide. After a time, she found herself back in the same circle of friends and thinkers she was in before she’d journeyed to France and this time she found love and solace in a Gothic author by the name of William Godwin. Godwin was a huge fan of the Wollstonecraft’s travel book and they fell in love. They married in 1797 and a few months later, Wollstonecraft gave birth to her and Godwin’s only child, a daughter, also called Mary. Due to complications in childbirth, Wollstonecraft died aged 38, leaving both her daughters in the care of William Godwin. The second of those daughters would also be a name to make history as arguably the creator of science fiction and inventor of one of pop culture’s most recognisable figures, this being Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. 

Credit to the National Portrait Gallery for the Mary Wollstonecraft portrait (painted by John Opie)