Brief Author Biographies
Glückel of Hameln (1646-1724)
Glückel
was
born into a merchant family in Germany.
She married at age 14 to Chaim Segal, who became a prosperous
merchant
of gems and precious metals. While
bearing and raising 14 children, Glückel was also closely involved
with
the family business, which she took over when she was widowed. Her autobiography chronicles her
married life, her years of widowhood, and her second marriage,
illuminating
much about women's roles in family and economy in early modern Europe. The text is also a window onto Jewish
life of this period.
Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919)
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Shaw
was born in
England, emigrating to the U.S. with her family when she was a small
child. She grew up on a farm in an
isolated area of Michigan, taking on much of the responsibility for the
farm
from the age of 12. Through
sustained personal effort, she became educated, including college and
divinity
school (the only woman in her class).
She struggled to be ordained by the Methodist Church (for years
refused
because she was female). After
some years of practicing her ministry, she undertook medical studies
and earned
an M.D. degree in 1886. She then became
very active in the movement for women's suffrage, including the
presidency of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association; she was a very close
associate of Susan B. Anthony's.
Vera Brittain (1893-1970)
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Vera
Brittain was born into a comfortable, middle-class family in England.
She
fought her family to pursue higher education at Oxford, where she began
studies
in 1913, joining there her beloved brother Edward and his friend
Roland, who
eventually became her fiancé.
World War I changed all their plans. Brittain
first experiences war on the home front, eventually
becoming a VAD (volunteer nurse) and going to the European front
herself. After the war she works to
establish
herself as a journalist, forms a deep friendship with Winifred Holtby,
also a
writer, marries an American political scientist, with whom she
eventually
establishes a commuting marriage across the Atlantic Ocean. Testament
of
Youth, the
first of
three autobiographical volumes, tells of these years.
Brittain later became very active as a pacifist.
Mrs.
Layton
(b. 1855)
Mrs.
Layton was one of a number of working-class
women whose autobiograhies were solicited by the Women's Cooperative
Guild, an
association in which these women were active. Mrs.
Layton was the seventh of fourteen children. From
the age of ten years she worked as
a domestic servant, while also pursuing education in night school. She later went into maternity nursing
and midwifery. She married and had
two children.
Audre
Lorde (1934-1992)
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