VICTORIA WOODHULL – A SOCIALLY SCANDALOUS ACTIVIST.

            

             Victoria Woodhull lived by her own rules and was a radical in many ways during her life time. She donned many hats as publisher, author, women’s rights activist and politician. She was hailed by some, scoffed at by others and disparaged by many. Yet she succeeded in leaving her footprints on the sands of Time.

            Born in Ohio, USA on 23^rd September 1838, to an illiterate mother and a petty criminal father, Victoria had never been to school until she was eight, and then on and off for three years. She was forced by her father to become an itinerant clairvoyant along with the sister Tennessee, telling people’s fortunes and acting as a medium for contacting spirits. It brought in some money for their sustenance. But much later in life she gave up spiritualism and even derided spiritualist frauds.

            Victoria had many firsts to her credit. In 1868, along with her sister Tennessee, she became the first woman to run a Stock Brokerage Company on Wall Street, courtesy the wealthy industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt to whom she provided ‘psychological solace.’ But being a woman, she could not get a seat in the New York Stock Exchange.

            In 1870 she published the “Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly” and ran it for six years. In this paper she freely expressed her controversial opinions on social reform, women’s suffrage, birth control, and taboo subjects like free love and sexuality. Her paper was the first to print an English translation of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.

            In 1871 through the influence of her friend Benjamin Butler a senator of Massachusetts, she became the first woman to address a Congressional Committee in the House of Representatives, on Women’s Rights. She said, “Women are the equal of men before the Law and have equal rights.” This brought her popularity and a position of leadership among the suffragettes. But a few years later, many of them became her fiercest critics, fearing that her unconventional lifestyle would put the Movement in jeopardy. When a comprehensive History of Women’s Suffrage was complied, her name was never mentioned.

            Victoria will go down in history as the first woman who ran for President of the United States in 1872. By then she had formed her own “Equal Rights Party” and contested on its ticket. But she was below 35 years of age which was the constitutionally mandated age for all candidates. No one took her candidacy seriously and she received no electoral votes.

            Victoria was also an author. Among her publications were “Stirpiculture or the Scientific Propagation of the Human Race” (1888) “Garden of Eden: Allegoric Meaning Revealed” (1889) and “The Human Body – The Temple of God.”(1890). She was an excellent speaker and even her critics recognized and acknowledged the power of her oratorical skills.

            Victoria became a target of public criticism because of her incorrigible lifestyle. She was thrice married and her first marriage was at the age of 15, to Canning Woodhull with whom she had two children. She was divorced after her first two marriages. During her time, divorce was socially scandalous and also limited by the law. Women who divorced were stigmatized by society. She had many other casual relationships too.

            Victoria was jailed along with her sister for publishing ‘obscene literature’ about Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and his clandestine affair with one of his parishioners.

            In 1877, Victoria and her sister moved to England. She continued to champion Women’s Rights and Women’s Suffrage, and spoke at many public functions. She finally settled down as a wife of a wealthy banker John Biddulph Martin in 1883.

            Along with her daughter, Victoria published a magazine “The Humanitarian” and ran it successfully for nine years. But after the death of her husband, she gave up publishing and retired to a village Brendon’s Norton in Worcestershire. She built a school there and became a champion of education in village schools.

            Victoria Woodhull died on June 9, 1927. Her life was a story of triumph over poverty, bad marriages, a hostile society and a sea of detractors. She was a woman of rare courage and stood up boldly for her convictions.

           

BAYA MAHIEDINNE – PICASSO’S INSPIRATION.

                        

            Some people are born artists and Baya or Fatima Haddad of Algeria was one such gifted person. Born in 1931 at a village called Bordj El Kiftan in Algeria, her talent for painting was evident even before the age of ten.

            Orphaned at the age of five, she was brought up by her grandmother. As a teenager she worked in the house of a French lady Marguerite Caminat, as a domestic help. This lady spotted her talent and encouraged Baya to draw and paint, even supplying her with paint, paper and whatever else she required. Later, Baya was legally adopted by her.

            Marguerite was well connected in the Art and Literary world. She showed Baya’s paintings to an Art dealer Aimee Maeght. Impressed by her talent, Aimee who was the Director of Maeght Art Gallery in Paris, organized a solo exhibition of Baya’s paintings in 1947. She was just sixteen years old and found herself suddenly in the limelight.  Andre Breton, Founder of the Surrealist Movement was impressed by her work and saw in her paintings a surrealistic dream like quality. In the Exhibition Catalogue he wrote that he was “promoting the beginning of Queen Baya.”

            But Baya refused to have her work compartmentalized under any genre. “I am a free spirit and paint the world within me,” she said. “When I paint I am happy. I am in another world. I forget everything.”

            Picasso met the teenaged Baya and was impressed with her work and the spontaneousness in her figures. In 1948 he invited her to work with him. It was a case of mutual admiration. They inspired and appreciated each other’s work. Though Picasso was fifty years older than her, she gave him fresh perspective and inspired him to paint a collection of women called “Women of Algeria.” An Art historian commented “Picasso nurtured Baya’s aesthetic – particularly her use of colour and line, while Baya’s cultural vitality served as a creative life blood for Picasso.”

            In 1952 Baya married an Algerian musician and composer Maheidinne Mahfoudh. Baya threw herself into domesticity, temporarily forsaking painting, to bring up six children in the years between 1953-1963. But she returned to painting in 1967 with renewed vigour. She was completely self- taught and painting was her passion. Totally illiterate, she could barely sign her name.

            Baya’s output was copious. Her subjects were women in colourful dresses, children, animals, flowers, fish and butterflies. Her colours were vibrant, her outlines bold and well defined. Baya’s work was exhibited in Paris and Algeria. Some of her paintings were printed on postal stamps. She also tried her hand at pottery.

            Critics called her work primitive, naïve or surreal. Some saw similarities with Islamic or African tribal art. It did not bother her or affect her work. She only allowed her environment and imagination to influence her artistry.

            Though invited to settle in France, Baya preferred to stay in Bilda Algeria until her death on November 9^th, 1998. This humble lady’s tribal art fascinated the western world.

           

COUNTESS ADA LOVELACE – ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS.

                        

The digital world today hardly remembers “The Mother of Computer Science” – Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program in 1837, while she was still in her teens.

            Ada Augusta was the daughter of the poet Lord George Gordon Byron, who suffered bouts of insanity and was notorious for his erratic behaviour. He abandoned his family when Ada was only a month old, either because he felt intimidated by his highly intelligent wife Anne Isabella Milbanke, Baroness of Wentworth, or because Ada was not the ‘glorious boy’ the couple had expected.

            Ada was born on the 10^th of December 1815, in London. She grew up under the care of her maternal grandmother Judith, Lady Milbanke. Her mother had little affection for her and distanced herself from her child. She was always afraid that Ada would show signs of insanity like her father. Though physically distanced from Ada, she made sure that her daughter got a sound education through the best of private tutors. Maths, Logic and Science were subjects that took precedence over French and Music. She kept a close watch on Ada’s progress and berated her if she didn’t do well in her studies.

            From an early age, Ada showed a keen interest in Maths. She also had a fascination for machines. At the age of 8 she modelled boats. At 13, she designed flying machines. But Ada was not a very healthy girl. In 1829, she was paralyzed after an attack of measles and was incapacitated for a year. She had to walk with crutches until 1832. But nothing could mask her brilliant mind. She was presented at Court when 17, and became the belle of the season because of her brilliant mind.

            The highlight of Ada’s life was her meeting in 1833 with Charles Babbage, a Mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge. He was called the ‘Father of Computing’ and invented the first programmable computer – The Analytical Engine. He invited mother and daughter to view a small version of this calculating machine. Ada was determined to find out how it worked and asked for the machine’s blueprints. Her enthusiasm was such that she became the world’s first computer programmer, publishing the Bernoulli Number Algorithm. Ada was convinced that it would not just remain a calculator but would contribute to other areas like music, alphabet, images that could be converted into computer algorithms.

            Ada was married at the age of 19 to William King, Earl of Lovelace, and bore him three children in quick succession between 1836 -1839. But she had inherited from her father a flirtatious tendency and her affairs led to gossip among her mother’s friends. Ada was also a gambler and lost scandalous amounts on horse races.

Ada Lovelace 

            Ada’s greatest friend and mentor was Mary Somerville a famous mathematician. Together they discussed high level maths and also about Charles Babbage’s machine. It was Charles who called Ada ‘Lady Fairy’ and ‘Enchantress of Numbers.’

            Though Ada’s mother tried to poison her mind against her truant father and showed her his photograph only when she was 20 years old, Ada secretly harboured a soft corner for Byron. On November 27^th 1852, Ada died at the age of 36, from uterine cancer. According to her dying wishes, she was buried beside the grave of her father in the Church of St. Mary of Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottingham.

            Ada Lovelace Day commemorates her genius. It is a day when Women International celebrities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) are recognized and felicitated. It was first celebrated in 2009, and is now annually observed on the 2^nd Tuesday in October.