ANNA MARY ROBERTSON MOSES -THE GERIATRIC WONDER.

            

 

            Anna Mary Robertson a folk artist of the 20^th Century proved that Age is no bar to living a fruitful life. As Longfellow said “Nothing is too late until the tired heart ceases to palpitate.”

            Anna was born on 7^th September, 1860, at Greenwich, New York. Her father was a small-time farmer, and she was third daughter in a family of ten. Her father recognized her passion for Art and would buy for her white paper sheets for her drawings. She would use lemon and grape fruit juice, grass, flour paste or saw dust to colour her drawings. Anna attended school for just a short time.

            At the age of 12, she became house keeper of a family and worked there for fifteen years. Her employers too recognized her interest in Art and provided her with chalk, wax and crayons. Apart from cooking and cleaning, Anna also did sewing and embroidery. She embroidered colourful landscapes on cloth and attractive quilted objects for family and friends, from 1930 till her 76^th year when she began to develop arthritis. Using needle and thread for her embroidery became painful. Her sister suggested that painting would be easier.

            So in 1918 at the age of 78, Anna started painting every day until she was 90. When her right hand grew tired, she would paint with her left hand, but never gave up. She generated more than 1500 canvases and initially sold them for a pittance.

            In 1938, an Art collector Louis J Calder discovered her paintings in the window of a drug store in Hoosick Falls, New York. He bought all of them and promoted her work among New York Art dealers. In 1939, three of her paintings were exhibited in the New York Museum of Modern Art, titled “Contemporary Unknown Painters.”

This was followed by solo exhibitions in New York, other parts of USA and later in Europe for the next twenty years. Bennington Museum in Vermont has the largest collection of her paintings.

            In 1887, Anna was married at the age of 27, to Thomas Solomon Moses a farmer. They stayed in Virginia for two decades and had ten children. But only five survived. Always an industrious woman, Anna not only worked on the farm but supplemented their income by making and selling potato chips and butter churned from cows’ milk. In 1905, the couple relocated to Eagle Bridge, New York. Thomas died in 1927. Anna continued to run the farm with the help of her son Forrest.

            Anna portrayed pastoral scenes in different seasons, like snow fall in winter or budding greenery in spring. She also painted people engaged in farm activities. She was completely self- taught and developed her own style of painting from top to down- first the sky, then the hills down to houses, people and cattle. The luminous colours she used imbued her paintings with life. Artists may have thought her art was primitive and called it “Naïve Art,” but it never bothered her. “I paint to keep busy and pass the time away,” she said. She drew from memory.

A German critic remarked, “The unrest and neurotic insecurity of present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple, and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses. She depicted the world as beautiful and good.”

Judith Stein an Art historian said she was ‘a cultural icon. The spry, productive nonagenarian was continually cited as an inspiration to house wives, widows and retirees.’

Jean McMahon, Professor of Women’s Studies called her a ‘homespun feminist who advocated Women’s Suffrage.’

Grandma Moses escaped from the feeling of domestic confinement through Art and her paintings.

            In 1950, the National Press Club cited her as one of the five most newsworthy women.

At 88 years, Mademoiselle Magazine called her ‘The Youngest Woman of the Year.’

            After retirement from farm work Anna moved in with her daughter. In 1952, she published her autobiography “My Life History.” She wrote “I look on my life as a good day’s work………Life is what we make it. Always has been, always will be.”

            The ‘tiny, lively woman with mischievous grey eyes and quick wit’ won numerous awards and two honorary doctorate degrees.

Her 100^th birthday was celebrated as “Grandma Moses Day” by Nelson Rockefeller. In the September 19^th, 1960 issue of Life Magazine, Grandma Moses was featured on the cover page.

She died at the age of 101, on December 1^st, 1961, at a healthcare centre in Hoosick Falls, New York, and was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery.

President John Kennedy said, “Death of Grandma Moses removed a beloved figure from American life. The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of American life.”

            Grandma Moses leaves behind the message that Age is no bar to a productive life.

           

AGNES SMEDLEY – SELFLESS POLITICAL ACTIVIST.

                                    

            Agnes Smedley was a radical activist from an early age. Most of her life was spent championing the cause of the oppressed. She held extreme political views which got her into trouble with the authorities.

            Born in Osgood, Missouri on February 23^rd 1892, she was the daughter of a labourer Charles Smedley, who deserted the family when Agnes was 14. As her mother was sickly, Agnes was forced to work as a domestic, to help support her family. Undeterred by her circumstances, she passed the New Mexico Teachers Examination, and began to work as a teacher at the age of 16, in Terico.

            In 1911 Agnes joined the Tempe College. It was here that she became involved in student politics. She married her college mate Ernest Brunden in 1912, and moved to Teachers College in San Diego. In 1916, she joined the Socialist Party of America and was dismissed from college for her socialist beliefs.

            Agnes got divorced in 1917 and moved to New York. She joined a group of Indian students who were supporting their country’s Nationalist Movement against British rule. She joined the “Friends of Freedom for India” an organization which was closely monitored by the US government. Emma Goldman called Agnes a true rebel who seemed to have no other interest in life except the cause of the oppressed in India. She was also disseminating information about Birth Control under the influence of Margaret Sanger, a subject which was taboo at that time. In 1918, she was charged on these two accounts and sent to prison.

            After her release from prison, Agnes began writing articles for the New York Call and for a British birth control journal run by Margaret Sanger.

            Agnes moved to Berlin in 1920, with the revolutionary Indian leader Virendranath Chattopadyaya. It was a turbulent relationship with a man who had ‘a tongue like a razor and a brain like hell on fire.’ She felt she was living on the brink of a volcanic crater. While in Berlin, she opened the first Birth Control Clinic.

            In 1921, Agnes moved to Russia and got interested in the communist ideology. She was disillusioned by the lack of freedom of the people and felt that everybody was under surveillance. In 1928 she moved out of Russia and went to China. When in China, she spent a great deal of time with communist forces. She wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian and Chinese Review about the situation in China. She was aware of the misery and starvation of peasants and the overworked coolies. Agnes was instrumental in ensuring American support to the Chinese communists, to prevent the Japanese advancing in the Pacific.

            It was here in 1928 that Agnes wrote her autobiographical novel “Daughter of the Earth.” The book was published in USA and Germany and received good reviews. It was described as ‘America’s first feminist proletarian novel.’

            In 1941, Agnes went back to the USA. She continued with her writing and went on lecture tours describing life in China. She also lectured on world politics. She was dubbed a communist spy, who worked as a triple agent for the Soviets, China and India. The FBI monitored her speeches, as she frequently attacked the US government for siding with totalitarian regimes.

            In 1949, Agnes was fed up of the smear campaigns unleashed against her in the US. So she moved to Oxford, England. By then she was in poor health and she died at the age of 58, on 6^th May 1950.

            Agnes Smedley was a complicated person. She acted out of humane motives, without considering the repercussions of her actions. She lived a life of extraordinary achievements as a gifted writer, a journalist and a feminist who had friends like Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman and even Mao Tse Tung. But her enemies outnumbered her friends because of her political activism. Freda Utley described her as “one of the great people with burning sympathy for the misery and wrongs of mankind.”

KRIPABAI SATTIYANANDAN – INDIA’S FIRST FEMINIST WRITER.

            

In the 1880s, a young woman from Madras raised her voice against the systemic degradation of women. She believed that if women had to rise to power, they should redefine feminity. Marriage and domesticity should not be the sole ambition of women. They had the right to live and not simply exist; the right to independent thought and intellectual pursuits. This brave woman was bold enough to communicate her convictions through her writing. She was the first Indian woman to write in English, and the first Indian feminist novelist.

Kripabai was born in 1862 at Ahmednagar, to Hindu parents Haripunt and Radhika Khisty. She lost her father at an early age and was brought up by her mother and brother. Her brother Bhaskar encouraged her to read a lot, and engaged her in discussions on then prevailing issues. Unfortunately he too died at a young age.

Kripabai converted to Christianity but she grew up observing both religions. Her education was sponsored by two European missionaries. She was the first woman to attend the Madras Medical College. She lived as a boarder in the house of Rev. W. T. Sattiyanandan. But because of her poor health, she had to discontinue her medical studies.

While boarding in the Reverend’s house, she fell in love with his son Samuel Sattiyanandan and married him. He was the Head Master of a school in Ooty. Kripabai used that time in Ooty to start a school for Muslim girls. She was a strong advocate of women’s education This was also the time when she started writing her articles and poems. They were published under the byline “An Indian Lady.” Her first published article was “A Visit to the Todas.”

Ill health dogged her footsteps and she had to return to the warmer climate of Madras in 1886, when she seriously began to write her first book “Suguna –Story of a Native’s Christian Life.” It was semi-autobiographical in which she also referred to her brother. Though she spoke Marathi, Tamil and Telugu, she found it easier to write in English in which she was fluent. During this time, she gave birth to a child who died before its first year.

Kripabai’s health gradually deteriorated. She was diagnosed with Tuberculosis which did not respond to treatment. She used this time to write her second novel “Kamala”- The story of a high caste Hindu woman caught in the grip of orthodoxy, and her life as a child bride, mother and widow. Some of it was written from her hospital bed.

Kripabai was an advocate of women’s education. She was passionately involved in women’s issues and decried decadent customs and superstitions. Some of her articles were unfinished at the time of her death in 1894.

Madras Medical College has perpetuated her memory by offering a scholarship to a woman candidate to study Pharmacology or go for higher Medical studies. Madras University too offers a medal to a female who stands first in English.

It is a pity that Kripabai died so young and could not see the progress of women in the 21^st century.