Zona Vallance | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 6 February 1860 |
| Died | 15 December 1904 |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, lecturer, secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK) |
| Movement | Ethical Movement |
Zona Vallance (6 February 1860 – 15 December 1904) was a writer, lecturer, feminist, and key figure in the British Ethical Movement. As the inaugural Secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK), she held the equivalent role of today's Chief Executive. [1]
Zona Vallance was born in Stratford, London on 6 February 1860, the daughter of Thomas James Vallance, a doctor, and Lucy (née Skipper). [2] At 30, she was a founding member of the East London Ethical Society (launched in 1890), described as 'devoted and enthusiastic' by fellow worker Frederick James Gould in his Life-Story of a Humanist. [3] From her earliest involvement with the Ethical Movement, Vallance spoke widely on its behalf, advocating the development of moral ideas and action distinct from theological or supernatural beliefs. A central principle of the movement was that 'the love of goodness and the love of one's fellows are the true motives for right conduct; and self-reliance and co-operation are the true sources of help.' [4] Vallance herself wrote that 'Salvation consists in the surrender of the private for the public weal'. [5]
Zona Vallance was the first Secretary of both the Union of Ethical Societies and the Moral Instruction League, which advocated for non-theological moral education for the young. She contributed regularly to the journal the Ethical World, writing on women's rights and suffrage, keeping up 'a commentary on Parliament, the courts, and on women's societies'. [2] Her significance to the movement is noted by Gustav Spiller in his history of the Ethical Movement in Great Britain, who wrote
The name of Miss Vallance recurs repeatedly in this History as Secretary to the Ethical Union and to the Moral Instruction League, and in other capacities. She contributed frequently to the columns of The Ethical World, wrote leaflets and pamphlets, lectured, and assisted in numerous other ways, and stressed more especially justice to women in the social and political sphere. [6]
Vallance was secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies 1895–1899, and the Moral Instruction League from December 1897 to January 1900. She was also an organiser in the Union's Moral Instruction Circle, which worked to convince 'numerous London teachers and parents that moral instruction could be interestingly and effectively given.' As part of this, in June 1899 Vallance and others from the Union of Ethical Societies (including J. R. MacDonald) presented a petition to the London School Board challenging the use of the Bible in schools, and arguing that 'the supposition that parents are pleased with the present Bible teaching is quite unfounded in fact'. [6] The Committee suggested that
It is universally admitted that various motives concur to hinder parents from availing themselves of the "Conscience Clause" of the Education Act. In addition to the fears for themselves or their children which deter them, many parents are influenced by the knowledge that the hour devoted to theological teaching is also the only time set apart for systematic instruction in morals, and many who disapprove the former are nevertheless unwilling to deprive their children of the latter. [7]
In 1901, Vallance was assigned a one-year lectureship by the Ethical Lecturers' Fund Committee, which consisted of Leslie Stephen, A. Vernon Harcourt, G. F. Stout, J. H. Muirhead, and Stanton Coit. This Committee arose 'from a conviction... that a great national good might be done by a thorough teaching and preaching of moral principles among the people,' undertaken by those in sympathy with the principles of the Union of Ethical Societies. [8] The following year, Vallance undertook a lecture tour of the United States, speaking at various societies and clubs. [9] Among these was Hull House, a settlement co-founded in 1899 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, where she gave a talk entitled 'The Economic Dependence of Man upon Women'. [10] In it, she argued that women must agitate for political rights, and that they deserved to be compensated through some form of national tax for their services in the household. [11] At the conference of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, Vallance lectured on 'Women and the Ethical Movement', stating that 'all self-respecting women' should 'be found in the vanguard of self-assertion today' and lead the way in ethical reforms. She also spoke in praise of women's trade unions as an example of the way 'the woman of ethical culture persuasion should bend her energies to the enlightenment ... and industrial emancipation of women in the busier walks of life'. [12]
In addition to lecturing, Vallance produced a number of pamphlets for the Union of Ethical Societies, including 'Reason in the Ethical Movement', 'The Ethical Movement and Women', and 'The Ethical Movement and the After Life'. She wrote at length on the role of women in a chapter for the 1900 collection Ethical Democracy: Essays in Social Dynamics , published by the Society of Ethical Propagandists and edited by Stanton Coit. Other contributors to the volume included G.H. Perris, J. R. MacDonald, J. H. Muirhead, F. J. Gould, Margaret McMillan, and Christen Collin. [13]
Vallance's socialism, humanism, and feminism were deeply intertwined. In 1902 she contributed an article to the International Journal of Ethics on the position of women entitled 'Women as Moral Beings'. This was summarised in Mind as arguing that '[u]nless intelligent women have more rights as against their husbands they may refuse the burdens of marriage. They should be put more on a financial and legal equality, and should be remunerated for the duties of motherhood. [14] Vallance 'looks forward to a women’s movement that advocates such reforms in recognition of both the "tyranny of limiting all women to family occupations" and the "pernicious effects of expecting a domestic worker to be also a market earner".' [15] In 'Women as Moral Beings', she asked
Can our world be so re-modelled that women no less than men shall have free scope for the satisfaction of many-sided human nature and aspiration? ... What is right for finite beings to do always depends on what is possible; and yet the very Hall-mark of Humanity is to sit in judgement upon the possible. [16]
Ian MacKillop argues that as the lead writer on women's issues in the Ethical World from 1899 until her death in 1904, Vallance was by no means 'preaching to the converted', but 'had to justify female suffrage from the beginnings'. He notes that Vallance took particular aim at 'the socialist of good-will who simply could not understand the relevance of the woman question to analysis of capitalism'. For her, the individualistic ideology of capitalism and the idea of men as inherently dominant, contributed to the ongoing subjugation of women in social and political life. [2] Of Vallance's focus on motherhood, which was read by some as counter to progressive feminist ideas, MacKillop writes that
She made much of the mother-figure because of the place it occupied for her in an evolutionist's myth of origin which replaced the Christian myth of patriarchy. Under theology-based systems of ethics woman was passive, unenquiring and obedient, until sinful. Under a post-Darwinian system woman was, in a quite literal sense, capable of being held responsible for the 'ethical movement' of mankind... It is not meant to decree a retreat into solo responsibility for child-care in twentieth-century woman. On the contrary, Zona Vallance thought that husband and wife should act as partners, a collaboration between genders which contested the Christian single gender model of paired authority, that between Father and Son. [2]
Zona Vallance died in Kensington on 15 December 1904, at the age of 44. [17] Of her, fellow suffragist, socialist, and ethical society member Dora Montefiore wrote
The cause of Humanity lost on December 16 [sic] one of its most devoted workers in the person of Zona Vallance, writer and lecturer, who, after a short but painful illness, is now at rest. A woman fellow-worker writes of her: “She recognised clearly and fully that every worthy motive for right living remained the same, whether life lived ‘for evermore,’ or ceased with the parting breath; and the less she concerned herself for a personal immortality the more she strove for the well-being and the moral progress of the race. ‘Progress,’ writes a modern author, consists in human souls, taught to know their dignity, and the vast Universe of their inheritance.' [18]
Zona Vallance’s significant contributions to the Ethical Movement were acknowledged in Stanton Coit’s Ethical Church with a plaque designed by Ernestine Mills, a fellow Ethical Society member and women’s rights advocate. In a pamphlet describing the secular church, Coit wrote
The first memorial tablet to be placed in our Church is the one to the left of our pulpit. It is a testimonial of the high esteem in which Miss Zona Vallance was held by all her colleagues in the Suffrage and Ethical Movements. It is a splendid enamel by Mrs Ernestine Mills, representing a Joan of Arc figure bearing an ensign of purple, green and white, the colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and memorialising Miss Vallance’s enthusiastic welcome to this more aggressive organisation, concerning the latter developments of which she did not live to form a judgement. [19]
A bequest by Vallance 'for the promotion of the cause of all women's political, professional and financial equality with men' caused consternation among her executors and next of kin. In 1945, the Gloucester Citizen reported that although the National Council of Women had claimed the gift, a judge ruled that it was 'invalid for uncertainty', stating that he 'had no notion how a trust to promote the cause of equality with men or womenhood in general, wherever they might come from and whatever their race or colour, could be executed by the Court.' [20]
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.
Religious humanism or ethical humanism is an integration of humanist philosophy with congregational rites and community activity that center on human needs, interests, and abilities. Religious humanists set themselves apart from secular humanists by characterizing the nontheistic humanist life stance as a non-supernatural "religion" and structuring their organization around a congregational model.
Equality feminism is a subset of the overall feminism movement and more specifically of the liberal feminist tradition that focuses on the basic similarities between men and women, and whose ultimate goal is the equality of both genders in all domains. This includes economic and political equality, equal access within the workplace, freedom from oppressive gender stereotyping, and an androgynous worldview.
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs" in the United Kingdom by campaigning on issues relating to humanism, secularism, and human rights. It seeks to act as a representative body for non-religious people in the UK.
Felix Adler was a German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, influential lecturer on euthanasia, religious leader and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement.
Barbara Mary Smoker was a British humanist activist and freethought advocate. She was also President of the National Secular Society (1972–1996), Chair of the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society (1981–1985) and an Honorary Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association in the United Kingdom.
The Ethical movement is an ethical, educational, and religious movement established in 1877 by the academic Felix Adler (1851–1933). The premise of Ethical Culture is that honoring and living in accordance with a code of ethics is required to live a meaningful life and for making the world a better place for all people.
The Conway Hall Ethical Society, formerly the South Place Ethical Society, based in London at Conway Hall, is thought to be the oldest surviving freethought organisation in the world and is the only remaining ethical society in the United Kingdom. It now advocates secular humanism and is a member of Humanists International.
John Mackinnon Robertson was a prolific Scottish journalist, advocate of rationalism and secularism, and Liberal Member of Parliament for Tyneside from 1906 to 1918.
Stanton George Coit was an American-born leader of the Ethical movement in England. He became a British citizen in 1903.
Anna Garlin Spencer was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island. In Providence she was commissioned to develop the Religious Society of Bell Street Chapel which was to be devoted to the religious outlook of James Eddy. She compiled Eddy's views into a Bond of Union to which members of the new society would subscribe. She was later associated with the New York Society for Ethical Culture (1903–1909) and the New York School of Philanthropy (1903–1913).In 1909, she signed on to the call to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Over a long period she was a popular lecturer and wrote on social problems, especially concerning women and family relations. Her writings include Woman's Share in Social Culture (1913) and The Family and Its Members (1922).
Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1890 as the International Journal of Ethics, renamed in 1938, and published since 1923 by the University of Chicago Press. The journal covers scholarly work in moral, political, and legal philosophy from a variety of intellectual perspectives, including social and political theory, law, and economics. It publishes both theory and application of theory to contemporary moral issues, as well as historical essays, provided they have significant implications for contemporary theory. The journal also publishes review essays, discussion articles, and book reviews. The journal employs a triple-blind peer review process.
Frederick James Gould was an English teacher, writer, and pioneer secular humanist.
Gustav Spiller was a Hungarian-born ethical and sociological writer who was active in Ethical Societies in the United Kingdom. He helped to organize the First Universal Races Congress in 1911.
Sonja Albertine Jeannine Eggerickx is a Belgian secular Humanist who was president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), now Humanists International, a position she held for nine years until stepping down in 2015. In 2016 she was awarded the Distinguished Services to Humanism Award 2016 for her ground-breaking work in secular education and ethics.
Adela Stanton Coit was a women's suffragist and social reformer. She was a large proponent of the Ethical Movement, which was a movement that focused on providing humanism, or living "rich and moral lives without reference to religious doctrines or supernatural beliefs."
Lady Elizabeth Swann was a social activist, philanthropist, and advocate for trade unionism, and women's suffrage, and the development of midwifery, as well as an important figure in the development of organised humanism and the Ethical movement in Britain. She was the wife of Liberal Party politician Sir Charles Ernest Swann MP.
Ruth Homan was an educationist and women's welfare campaigner, who worked for many years on the London School Board. She was also active in Liberal politics, and a supporter of progressive social policies. The Women's Library, London holds a collection of Homan's scrapbooks and albums.
Elizabeth Greer Coit was a prominent Ohio suffragist and humanitarian, who founded Columbus' first women's suffrage organization and was its inaugural President.
Hannah Wangeci Kinoti, was a Kenyan African Feminist theologian and a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. Kinoti was an African Ethicist and Religious Studies Scholar with over fifty publications. She was a founding member of Wajibu Journal, created in 1985, focusing on religion, African values, morality, politics and culture. Kinoti was the first female chairperson in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi.