Cobbe's reformist zeal was inspired by an association with the English educationalist and reformer Mary Carpenter, leading to her active support of Carpenter's work with street children in Bristol. Cobbe was famous for her strident opposition to the Poor Laws and the workhouse. Her campaigning spirit was subsequently directed at change for women, exhibited not so much in her desire to cast off her corsets as in her more radical beliefs in the fundamental rights of women and in education in particular, in which regard she allied herself with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She was crucial to a change in the law that allowed beaten wives to separate from their husbands, who had then to provide for their maintenance. From 1863, after reading a newspaper article about the inhumane treatment of animals in a French veterinary school, Cobbe devoted her energies to animal rights. The passion she brought to the fight against cruelty to animals makes her the spiritual ancestor of today's animal liberationists; it is a passion that endures in the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (SPALV) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), two of Britain's foremost anti-vivisectionist organisations, both of which she founded.
Using as a catalyst Cobbe's own thoughts and activities, as well as new and original research and a range of historical sources, Power and Protest explores what most concerned her: protest, reform and hierarchy, the relationship of men to women, of humans to animals. In this biography of Frances Power Cobbe, Lori Williamson reveals the fascinating complexity of one of Victorian England's most vocal and controversial women and, through her, notions of ideology, power and gender.
Cobbe's reformist zeal was inspired by an association with the English educationalist and reformer Mary Carpenter, leading to her active support of Carpenter's work with street children in Bristol. Cobbe was famous for her strident opposition to the Poor Laws and the workhouse. Her campaigning spirit was subsequently directed at change for women, exhibited not so much in her desire to cast off her corsets as in her more radical beliefs in the fundamental rights of women and in education in particular, in which regard she allied herself with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. She was crucial to a change in the law that allowed beaten wives to separate from their husbands, who had then to provide for their maintenance. From 1863, after reading a newspaper article about the inhumane treatment of animals in a French veterinary school, Cobbe devoted her energies to animal rights. The passion she brought to the fight against cruelty to animals makes her the spiritual ancestor of today's animal liberationists; it is a passion that endures in the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (SPALV) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), two of Britain's foremost anti-vivisectionist organisations, both of which she founded.
Using as a catalyst Cobbe's own thoughts and activities, as well as new and original research and a range of historical sources, Power and Protest explores what most concerned her: protest, reform and hierarchy, the relationship of men to women, of humans to animals. In this biography of Frances Power Cobbe, Lori Williamson reveals the fascinating complexity of one of Victorian England's most vocal and controversial women and, through her, notions of ideology, power and gender.

Power and Protest: Francis Power Cobbe and Victorian Society
320
Power and Protest: Francis Power Cobbe and Victorian Society
320Hardcover
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781854891006 |
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Publisher: | Rivers Oram Press/Pandora Press |
Publication date: | 03/01/2001 |
Pages: | 320 |
Product dimensions: | 6.50(w) x 9.70(h) x 1.10(d) |