Kitty Marion
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Kitty Marion (born Katherina Maria Schäfer, 12 March 1871 – 9 October 1944) was an activist who advocated for
women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
and
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...
. Born in the
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
, she immigrated to England in 1886 when she was fifteen. She sang in music halls throughout the United Kingdom in the late 19th century, and became known in the entertainment industry for bringing attention to the sexism and sexual assaults that were common in the business. Marion was a prominent member of the British suffrage movement, which campaigned for the right of women to vote. She began her advocacy by selling copies of the ''
Votes for Women Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
'' newspaper, then progressed to militant protests, vandalism, and riots. She was one of several suffragettes who conducted bombing and arson attacks throughout Britain. Marion was convicted and jailed several times for arson and bombing, and was subject to over two hundred
force-feeding Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose (nasogastric tube, nasogastric) or mouth (o ...
s while on hunger strike in prison. On the outbreak of World War I, Marion had to leave Britain because of her German origin, so she moved to the United States. She joined the birth control movement, and spent 13 years campaigning on street corners, selling
Margaret Sanger Margaret Sanger ( Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instr ...
's monthly magazine '' Birth Control Review''. She relied on her personality and loud voice to engage passers-by, and became a well-known figure in New York City. Marion was arrested several times for distributing birth control information in violation of anti-obscenity laws. She died in New York in 1944.


Early life

Katherina Maria Schäfer was born into a middle-class family in
Rietberg Rietberg () is a town in the district of Gütersloh in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located approximately 10 km south of Gütersloh and 25 km north-west of Paderborn in the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe. The town is l ...
in
Westphalia Westphalia (; ; ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the region is almost identical with the h ...
,
German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
, on 12 March 1871. Her mother died of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
when Katherina was two, leaving her with her father; four years later, her stepmother died of the same illness. As a child, Katherina enjoyed singing and reciting, and dreamed of performing on stage when she was grown. Her abusive father, who had a violent temper, often ridiculed her because of her red hair. When she was 15, her uncle helped her escape her father by secretly sending her to live with an aunt in England.


Acting career

Upon arriving in England, Marion lived with her aunt in London's East End, and worked as a housekeeper. At the age of nineteen, she took classes in dance, and started working in the entertainment business: performing in pantomimes, plays, skits, and musical comedies across Britain. She adopted the
stage name A stage name or professional name is a pseudonym used by performers, authors, and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. The equivalent concept among writers is called a ''nom de plume'' (pen name). Some performers ...
Kitty Marion, which she would later take as her legal name when she became a United States citizen in 1922. The working conditions for performers were harsh and workers were often exploited; women were expected to perform sexual favors in exchange for work opportunities and were frequently victims of sexual assault. In her autobiography, Marion recounted an incident with an agent she met with to inquire about a performance opportunity. When the agent tried to kiss her, she resisted, fell, and hit her head. He told her that she would not be able to succeed if she continued to refuse sexual advances from men in power. In 1906, Marion joined a union for actorsthe Variety Artists Federation (VAF). Soon after joining the union, she wrote a letter to the editor of '' The Era'' newspaper, responding to an article which criticized actors' lack of loyalty to their agents. In the letter, Marion wrote that she had "given up hope for a woman who wants to earn her own living, and at the same time rise in the profession on her merits only, without influence of any sort." In the following weeks, many other actresses wrote to the newspaper, describing their own experiences with unethical business practices. Over time, Marion earned a reputation within the acting community as a vocal advocate for actresses. During an acting career that spanned 24 years, Marion performed in a wide variety of theater works, including '' The Lady Slavey'' and '' The Forty Thieves''. Although she never became a star performer, she had some measure of success. After 1912, her militant activities in the suffrage movement adversely affected her acting opportunities, because producers and agents did not want to be involved in controversies.


Suffrage movement in the UK

While advocating for fellow performers, Marion was drawn to the suffrage movement in Britain, which campaigned for legislation that would give women the right to vote. She joined two suffrage organizations: the
Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...
(WSPU) in 1908, and the Actresses' Franchise League in 1909. One of her first tasks for the WSPU was selling copies of their newspaper, ''
Votes for Women Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
'', on the streets. The WSPU, founded in 1903, initially relied on lobbying and peaceful marches, but, by 1907, it began to use violence to achieve its goals. Marion endorsed the militant activism of the WSPU, and often participated in marches which turned into violent clashes with police. In 1908, Marion joined a large group of WSPU activists who invaded the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
, resulting in a violent riot involving 5,000 police officers. Later violent acts committed by Marion included smashing windows of
Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...
on
Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George IV of the United Kingdom, George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash (architect), J ...
in London; throwing bricks through the windows of post offices; and hurling a package of suffragette literature through a window of the
Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...
.


Bombing, arson, and hunger strikes

In 1912, under the leadership of
Christabel Pankhurst Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed Suffragette bombing and arson ca ...
, the WSPU's activism escalated from vandalism and riots to arson and bombing. The bomb and arson attacks were intended to attract attention, but not to harm people. As a precaution to minimize injuries, some bombs smoked before they detonated, giving people time to escape. One of the first arson attacks perpetrated by Marion occurred in April 1913, when she set fire to a home of
Arthur du Cros Sir Arthur Philip Du Cros, 1st Baronet (26 January 1871 – 28 October 1955) was a British industrialist and politician. Early life and education Du Cros was born in Dublin on 26 January 1871, the third of seven sons of Harvey du Cros and his w ...
, a Member of Parliament who had consistently voted against the enfranchisement of women. The most significant arson attack conducted by Marion was in the summer of 1913, when she and Clara Giveen exacted revenge for the death of fellow suffragette
Emily Davison Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was an English suffragette who fought for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Polit ...
, who died while protesting for suffrage at a horse race track on 4 June 1913. Four days after Davison's death, Marion and Giveen responded by burning down the Hurst Park Race grandstand. Marion was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime. WSPU leaders employed Marion to carry out several bombings and arson attacks around Britain during 1914, including mansions in Lynton and
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
, as well as greenhouses in Liverpool's Sefton Park and Manchester's Alexandra Park. While in prison, some suffragettes would go on
hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...
, leading prison staff to restrain them and insert tubes down their nostrils or mouth, then pour liquid food through the tube. Marion engaged in hunger strikes and the consequent force feedings during several imprisonments between 1909 and 1915. During a four-month imprisonment in
Holloway prison HM Prison Holloway was a British prison security categories, closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, ...
in 1914 for arson, Marion was force-fed 232 times, sometimes three times a day. She remembered it to be "hellish torture", but the experience only increased her motivation. In 1909, Marion received the Hunger Strike Medal from the WSPU, awarded to suffragettes who went on hunger strikes while in prison. By 1914, Marion was considered one of the primary militants of the suffrage movement: she was included in a list compiled by the British
Criminal Record Office {{no footnotes, date=April 2019 The National Identification Service (NIS; also called SO4 from its Specialist Operations designation) is a department of the London Metropolitan Police which provides a range of support services on behalf of the Met ...
, along with Jennie Baines, Lillian Forrester, Clara Giveen,
Lilian Lenton Lilian Ida Lenton (5 January 1891 – 28 October 1972) was an English dancer and militant suffragette, and later a winner of a French Red Cross medal for her service as an orderly in World War I. She committed crimes, including arson, for the s ...
, Miriam Pratt and Mary Raleigh Richardson.


World War I

On the outbreak of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
in 1914, the leadership of WSPU adopted a patriotic stance and suspended their activism to support the national war effort. Marion returned to theater work andfearing reprisals for her suffrage worktook on a new stage name: Kathleen Meredith. Britain was at war with Germany, and under the Aliens Restriction Act of 1914 Marion was considered to be an enemy alien, which meant the UK government would almost certainly deport her. Marion applied to the government for permission to remain in the UK oralternativelyto become a British subject. Her application was denied, despite many supportive letters submitted by her colleagues. Marion was forced to make a choice between returning to Germany, or immigrating to America. She had no interest in returning to Germany, sowith financial assistance from the influential suffragettes
Constance Lytton Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton (12 February 1869 – 22 May 1923), usually known as Constance Lytton, was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control. S ...
and
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (; 21 October 1867 – 11 March 1954) was a British women's rights activist, suffragist and pacifist. Early life Pethick-Lawrence was born in 1867 in Clifton, Bristol as Emmeline Pethick. He ...
she boarded the steamship ''Cymric'' in October 1915 for passage from
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
to New York.


Birth control movement in the US

When Marion arrived in the US, she was not entirely unknown: US newspapers had mentioned her by name during the years 1912 to 1914 when reporting on the UK suffrage movement. Marion spent her first two years in New York unable to find work as an actress, because US talent agents were aware of her reputation for controversy in the UK. Instead, she worked as a dishwasher, and wrote a few small articles for newspapers. In January 1917, Marion noticed an advertisement for an upcoming birth control rally at
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...
, organized by
Margaret Sanger Margaret Sanger ( Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instr ...
's organization, the
American Birth Control League The American Birth Control League (ABCL) was founded by Margaret Sanger in 1921 at the First American Birth Control Conference in New York City. The organization promoted the founding of birth control clinics and encouraged women to control their ...
(ABCL). She contacted the ABCL and was surprised to discover that they were aware of Marion's activities in the suffrage movement. She accepted a job offer from the ABCL, selling copies of Sanger's monthly magazine, the '' Birth Control Review''. For the next thirteen years, Marion was a familiar figure in several New York neighborhoods, standing on street corners from
Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and Neighborhoods in New York City, neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway (Manhattan), ...
to
Coney Island Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...
, selling copies of the magazine. While selling, she advocated for birth control by engaging in conversation with passers-by. Marion continued to be occasionally mentioned in the New York press: in March 1917, she was described as an "English militant suffragette" in the ''
Brooklyn Daily Eagle The ''Brooklyn Eagle'' (originally joint name ''The Brooklyn Eagle'' and ''Kings County Democrat'', later ''The Brooklyn Daily Eagle'' before shortening title further to ''Brooklyn Eagle'') was an afternoon daily newspaper published in the city ...
''. Unlike Marion's suffragette years, her job as a street vendor did not include any violent activities, yet she was still arrested several times, usually for violating
obscenity laws An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...
that prohibited distribution of birth control information. In November 1918, she spent thirty days in jail for selling a birth control pamphlet to a member of the
New York Society for the Suppression of Vice The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV) was an organization dedicated to supervising the morality of the public, founded in 1873. Its specific mission was to monitor compliance with state laws and work with the courts and d ...
. In jail she met Agnes Smedley, a political dissident. Smedley remembers Marion coming down the hallway every morning shouting "Three cheers for birth control."


Later life and death

Marion was not present in the UK when the
Representation of the People Act 1918 The Representation of the People Act 1918 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 64) was an act of Parliament passed to reform the electoral system in Great Britain and Ireland. It is sometimes known as the Fourth Reform Act. The act extended the franchise in pa ...
was passed, which gave British women over the age 30 the right to vote under certain circumstances. She reunited with many of her former suffrage colleagues in March 1930, when she briefly returned to England to see the unveiling of a statue of suffrage leader
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (; Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women to win in 1918 the women's suffrage, right to vote in United Kingdom of Great Brita ...
. After Sanger resigned as president of ABCL in 1928, the new president, Eleanor Jones, took steps to transition the ABCL from an era of confrontational activism to a new era of dignified professionalism. In January 1930, in the midst of the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, Jones notified Marionthen 58 years oldthat street sales of the ''Birth Control Review'' would be discontinued, and Marion's services were no longer needed. The ABCL threw a luncheon for Marion, and gave her a severance payment of $500 () to thank her for selling 100,000 copies of the magazine. After departure from the ABCL, Marion found work at the Speech Improvement Project of the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
, where she helped children learn English, but by 1933, she was surviving on handouts from friends and former colleagues. In 1936, ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' published an article titled "Where Are They Now? The Crusader" which provided an update on Marion to its readers. Marion died in poverty at the Sanger Nursing Home in New York City on 9 October 1944. Her will specified that she should be cremated, and that there should be no funeral or religious services. Several newspapers printed Marion's obituary, including the ''
New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...
''; and tributes were sent from acquaintances in the UK, Australia, Jamaica, and across America. Marion earned her own living from the age of seventeen, and she never married.


Autobiography and historiography

Encouraged by friends who were impressed with her prodigious memory and engaging storytelling ability, Marion spent the years from 1930 to 1933 writing her autobiography, but she was unable to find a publisher during her lifetime. After her death in 1944, copies of the
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
passed into the collections of museums that had a special interest in the suffrage movement. The feminist scholar
Fern Riddell Fern Riddell ( ) (born 22 January 1986) is a British historian who specialises in gender, sex, suffrage and Victorian culture. She has written several popular history books and is a former columnist for the '' BBC History'' magazine. Early life ...
used the manuscript as source when writing the first full biography of Marion, published in 2018. Marion's autobiography was finally published in 2019, annotated by the academics Viv Gardner and
Diane Atkinson Diane Atkinson is a British historian and writer about women in history including the suffragettes, most recently for the centenary of women getting the vote in the United Kingdom, covering the detailed experiences of campaigning women in ''Rise ...
. Marion's contributions to the British suffrage movement were largely overlooked by 20th-century historians. Riddell traced the omission to the fact that most historians of the suffragette movement sanitized and distorted the history of the movement by suppressing most references to arson and bombings and over-emphasized genteel lobbying. The driving force behind these decisions, according to Riddell, was the Suffragette Fellowship, a group of former suffragettes, active from 1926 to 1950, who curated suffragette history and exerted control over museum exhibits and historical research. The Fellowship decided which women and events to highlight and which to ignore: they emphasized conservative figures and noble political goals, and de-emphasized working-class women and sexual issues.


References


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * Originally published in 1992 (Simon and Schuster ISBN 9780671600884), it was republished in 2007 with a new afterward. * * * * Scrapbook compiled by Marion containing newspaper clippings of her activities, digitized. Original at London Museum. * These papers contain a copy of the manuscript of Marion's autobiography. The page numbering of the manuscript is somewhat haphazard, and differs from the page numbering used when the autobiography was officially published 2019. See Woodworth 2012, page 89. Other collections of Marion's papers are found in the London Museum and in the London School of Economics and Political Science ( Women's Library collection). * Autobiography written by Marion in the early 1930s, but not published until 2019. With an introduction and epilogue written by the editors. Introduction by editors comprises pages 1 to 10; Marion's autobiography comprises pages 11 to 266; Epilogue comprises pages 267 to 271. * * * The title of this biography is taken from a note attached to a defused bomb planted by British suffragettes in 1913, which read "Votes for Women. Death in Ten Minutes" (page 106). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marion, Kitty 1871 births 1944 deaths 19th-century English people British musical theatre actresses American birth control activists American feminists American free speech activists American women's rights activists British arsonists British feminists British suffragettes British women's rights activists Emigrants from the German Empire to the United Kingdom English women in politics English emigrants to the United States Feminism and history Hunger Strike Medal recipients People from Rietberg People from the Province of Westphalia Suffragists from London