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Emily Hobhouse and the First World War, Pt. 2

2022-07-13 | 🔗

Hobhouse's work in South Africa continued after the second Anglo-Boer War was over, and her work as a humanitarian and peace activist continued during and after World War I.

Research:

  • "Boer War." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 2nd ed., vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2008, pp. 348-350. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3045300221/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=de8396d3. Accessed 17 June 2022.
  • "Emily Hobhouse." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, vol. 38, Gale, 2018. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631010793/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=3ffba52e. Accessed 17 June 2022.
  • Brits, Elsabé. “Emily Hobhouse: Beloved Traitor.” Tafelberg. 2016.
  • Brown, Heloise. “Feminist Responses to the Anglo-Boer War.” From “The Truest Form of Patriotism: Pacifist Feminism in Britain, 1870-1902.” https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526137890/9781526137890.00015.xml
  • Donaldson, Peter. "The Boer War and British society: Peter Donaldson examines how the British people reacted to the various stages of the South African war of 1899-1902." History Review, no. 67, Sept. 2010, pp. 32+. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A237304031/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=27ca4148. Accessed 17 June 2022.
  • Gill, Rebecca and Cornelis Muller. “The Limits of Agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering.” The Journal of South African and American Studies Volume 19, 2018.
  • Hobhouse, Emily. “Dust-Women.” The Economic Journal. Vol. 10, no. 39, Sept. 1900. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2957231
  • Hobhouse, Emily. “To the Committee of the Distress Fund for South African Women and Children. Report.” 1901. https://digital.lib.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.2/2530
  • Krebs, Paula M. "Narratives of suffering and national identity in Boer War South Africa." Nineteenth-Century Prose, vol. 32, no. 2, fall 2005, pp. 154+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A208109719/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=15c90c3c. Accessed 17 June 2022.
  • Nash, David. "THE BOER WAR AND ITS HUMANITARIAN CRITICS." History Today, vol. 49, no. 6, June 1999, p. 42. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A54913073/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=5d18555b. Accessed 17 June 2022.
  • Pretorius, Fransjohan. “Concentration camps in the South African War? Here are the real facts.” The Conversation. 2/18/2019. https://theconversation.com/concentration-camps-in-the-south-african-war-here-are-the-real-facts-112006
  • Sultan, Mena. “Emily Hobhouse and the Boer War.” The Guardian. 3/3/2019. https://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/from-the-archive-blog/2019/jun/03/emily-hobhouse-and-the-boer-war
  • Tan BRY. “Dissolving the colour line: L. T. Hobhouse on race and liberal empire.” European Journal of Political Theory. May 2022. doi:10.1177/14748851221093451
  • Van Heyningen, Elizabeth. “Costly Mythologies: The Concentration Camps of the South African War in Afrikaner Historiography.” Journal of Southern African Studies , Sep., 2008. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40283165

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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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hello and welcome to the podcast, I'm tracy b Wilson and I'm holly fry. This is part. two of our episode on Emily hop house and in part one, we talked about her early life. We talked about the basic overview of the second anglo boer war, also called the second war of independence. From the board perspective, we talked about her work investigating then tracing camps where wars are being held during the war and her efforts to bring relief and improve those conditions in those camps. That is the work that she is most known for today, especially outside of south africa, but her work in south africa Ten years after the war was over and her work as a humanitarian and a peace activist continued during enough
we're older ones. That's what we're talking about today, I feel like a person who didn't listen to part. One is probably not going to be totally lost, but there's like a lot of death in there that we're not really going to go over again. You will miss some context, for example Emily hothouses work in south africa during the second boer war letter, her being deep we reviled by many british authorities there and by people back in britain. There were some people who saw the conditions that she had exposed as a moral failure of the british empire, which urgently needed to be corrected. Others branded her as a traitor. Lord horatio Herbert kitchener, who replaced lord frederick roberts as commander in chief of the british forces during the war, called her that blue.
Women in the spring of one thousand, nine hundred and two hype house went to france to try to recover from the time she had spent in south africa and then also that time she can try to go back and was sent back to britain immediately trip had been just physically and psychologically grueling. She also had a heart condition as he recuperated in france. She also worked on a book called the brunt of the war and where it fell, but came out later in one thousand. Nine hundred and two, this book contains first hand, accounts from the concentration camps for borders, which people dictated to her. While she was there, a lot of the women in the camps didn't know how to write and the army heavily censored. The letters of those who did said this became one of the primary historical forces forbore accounts of the camp. how the house heard the announcement that the war was over while she was still in france under the tree
The framing signed on may thirty. First of nineteen o to the boar republic became british territory, but with the promise that they would become self governing, the treaty also included three million pounds sterling to fund reconstruction efforts and another three million pounds in interest free loans. Overwhelmingly the terms of this treaty applied to the poor population of south africa and other words white people. Primarily of dutch ancestry. They did not apply to the black population of the region or to any other people of color, so that relief money was relief, money for white people. The treaty specified that voting rights for black people would not even be discussed in this area until after the former south african republic also called the transvaal and the orange free state had become self governing. So it was like these two
Colonial groups had a war with each other in someone else's territory and then in the treaty that ended that war, not only not address, but disenfranchise the local population who had not asked for this at all in nineteen thousand three hop, and return to south africa to continue her humanitarian work. She had again money to buy food and supplies to deliver to the poor people who have been affected by the war and the scorched earth policy. As we discussed in part one many of the people who were held in concentration camps either went there or were forced there after the british military had burned down their homes and farms. So hop house wanted to see how these people were faring. During the post war, reconstruction she talked to one bore a family after another who was really struggling, hunger was widespread, but people she talk to. You said that they had not seen
Any of that relief money at all part of this was because the way the money was being apportions, people who had remained loyal to britain throughout the war and burma You had surrendered and find loyalty oath, who were also in his hands uppers. They were given priority. People who had continued to fight were farther down the best and bitter enders are the people who had fought to the bitter end. They were last aside from that hierarchy and he was getting relief, though hothouse that corruption and waste were keeping these funds from getting to the people who need it. them hob house, distributed as much food and as many supplies as she could, but she also just did not see a way for the boers to recover from the effects of the scorched earth policy that had led to the destruction of so many homes and farms,
in addition to their homes being burned down, people's animals have been confiscated or killed, including the teams that they would normally used to plough. So farmers have no way to start planting again and to get back on their feet. Mouse realised that it was critical for farmers to get some crops into the ground. She thought, maybe, if each district tat ploughing team, that team can rotate took through the farms to prepare the soil for planting, rather than expecting every farm to find the money to buy and feed its own team of animals see that the reconstruction effort needed to include making sure every farm family had what they needed to plow and plant for the first couple of seasons after the war, after which point they should be able to sustain themselves so
Emily hob. How started raising money to buy teams of oxen that could be shared among farmers to get the planting season started. Since these animals are going to need to plough multiple farms consecutively, she focused on these strongest healthiest animal. She could find and weren't started to spread about what she was doing in one account. She that cattle auction and people wondered What, in the world this middle aged british woman was doing buying all of the best animals They realise that she was buying them for this relief effort. They stopped bidding against her hothouse tried to get churches and other relief org. Savings and the colonial government interested in this ploughing programme. She knew that she couldn't stay in south africa forever and she didn't want it to fall apart without her there to oversee things, but for the most part, british authorities still saw her as a nuisance at best
they stridently denied who reports of hunger and a lack of relief money in the former bore republics and they I had the idea that relief board responsible for distributing the money were doing anything wrong. Newspapers called her her plowing plan absurd and described her as hysterical. Her response was this quote: to call a woman hysterical because you have not the knowledge necessary to deny her facts is the last refuge give the unmanly in the coward. I always felt when termed his Miracle that I had triumphed, because it meant my arguments cannot be met, nor my statements denied,
how's return to Europe in late, one thousand, nine hundred and three. Having spent about six months in south africa, the ploughing teams were set to continue in her absence, and her next project was an effort to establish educational systems for bore women and girls. Families needed more ways to earn money, but a lot of jobs. Considered appropriate for women. In Britain, for example, a woman might work as a teacher or demean domestic service. There's were considered to be ok, but a lot of bore women did not have the education that was required to tee it's in south africa, a lot of white people saw domestic service. As black women's works. There was an element of racism in the jobs. People were willing to do
so how house transformed the south, africa, women and children distress fund into the boer home industries and aid society to raise money, to establish programs that would allow bore women and girls to earn money to support themselves and their families. At first, she was focused on the idea of starting lace making schools and she spent some in belgium studying lace making, but as she discussed her plans with other people, some of them pointed out that lace was really a luxury item and while it might be possible to export it, the market for lace within south africa was going to be limited. So she traveled to ireland to learn about spinning and weaving. This would allow men and girls to earn money, and it would also help people deal with shortages of practical everyday goods like rugs and towels. She started buying spinning wheels and having them shipped to south africa.
she'd also been keeping up a regular correspondence with young smits, who had been a general in the boar forces. During the warm smith's wrote hob house a letter that was extremely critical of the british government and of english officials in south africa, smuts had never intended for this letter to become public, but hob house had it published, it backed up a lot of what she had been saying. This, truly, though, upsets with deeply and she apologized for hurting him. But she did not apologise for having publish the letter and number of nineteen o four, as hob house was planning to return to south africa and establish a spinning and weaving school. Her uncle lord Alfred hothouse died. This is an enormous loss for Emily and for her aunt, Mary, Mary and Alfred, had really been devoted to eat
other and Emily had been really close to both of them and a lot of ways. They had been like parents to her Emily considered cancelling her trip to stay with her aunt, but Mary insisted that she go and we'll get to what happened after a sponsor break this, Clip is brought to you by state farm families, important and so was having money. That's why date. Form has your back by offering surprisingly great rates on home and auto insurance. They can help him or the things important eu and the great rates help your budget like a good neighbour state farm. Is there go to statefarm dot com for a quote today
you can add a meteoric rise, and I know the person very well who came up with with your story. He wasn't on the road, but he conceptualized it in office cash. I mean. I guess it was really helpful that I had grown up so rough and had survived so much before I ever got there that anything that happened was like a sprinkles on top of a sundae of just surviving EU states. For proud sponsor of the Michael Duda podcast network, listen to new episodes of your favorite michael, do that shows available on the heart, radio, app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. That's only a national museum of african american history and culture seeks to raise three hundred and fifty million dollars to support research programmes and the creation of an endowment fund to assure the african american story living history is preserved, learn more at campaigns that in em a not as I don t do you inspired
You be solved groundbreaking video games, series assassins, creed, the echoes of history book asked of us deep and fascinating dive into history. I'm host danny wallace and in this new season we celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of assessing creed. My revisiting history, with a series of port rates of historical figures surpassed by the emergence of new episodes, weekly, listen to echoes of history. Behind the legends on I have or wherever you get, your pockets emily hothouse left for south africa again and early nineteen o five, along with two other women Adeline darby and margaret clark clark with a twenty six year old quaker, who had seen hob house speak at a meeting a couple of years before had found a really inspiring and as well
and to assist her in her work, including going all the way to south africa during their voyage to south africa. Hop house taught them spinning and weaving and other things associated with those tasks and how to speak, bore dutch and they shed to keep up with those lessons. Even though Margaret was really seasick. She was like we're on schedule. We gotta be ready to go and we get there once they. To south africa, they went to fill a pull us in orange river colony, where a jewish merchant had offered them a house in a shop that he wasn't using. They had help from two black servants named moses and flora, as well as some assistance from people in the boar community, but still turning a disused house and shop into a place they could live and a functional weaving school was
enormous amount of work. Margaret became exhausted and Emily was starting to feel this train. So she eventually wrote to her friend constance pluta in cape colony, to ask her to come and help as well. This school opened on march 13th, one thousand nine hundred and five with room for thirteen students and within two weeks, all those were filled soon, have houses working on getting more equipment, so they could teach more students than she was getting requests from other towns to start schools there. But even when things seem to it's going pretty well, they were facing a lot of hiccups like a shipment of hundreds of donated spinning wheels from switzerland arrived broken and they had to be repaired before they could be put to use She did, though, eventually get the school and philip polis established enough to turn her attention to opening up a second school in on late over this period.
House, was starting to think about whether she should just move to south africa permanently. Each voyage between england and south Africa typically took more than twenty days, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to divide her time and attention between the two places. She didn't want to make that decision without seeing her aunt Mary again, but on may fourth, one thousand nine hundred and five as she was planning to visit home. She received word that lady Mary hophouse had died This was obviously another source of heartbreak for her Emily hob house started to feel really lonely during this period of her life
at lyme darby had not really worked out at the weaving school and she had gone back to britain wants a replacement arrive for her margaret clark eventually went back to england as well, and Emily did have other friends and south africa, so she thought maybe having a permanent whom might help her feel more settled there. She had a house built with the help of young smits, but everything still to sell as struggle. She made another trip back to england, but without her aunt living there she didn't feel like that was home anymore. Either one thousand, nine hundred and seven welbeck in europe house travel to switzerland to personally thank the swiss for their support in the home industries project funding had prime,
we come from the boar home industries and aid society and from local fundraising in south africa, but the swiss had been really instrumental in providing spinning wheel, sending thousands of them, including people's donated heirlooms. Before going back to south africa, she got a dog mrs saint bernard, a puppy that she named kara, which had been her nickname for her old fiance john card jackson. She adored that dog, but sadly she had him for less than a year, not long after should go back to south africa. He got sick and I she never got another dog, but after that any time she saw a person with a saint bernard she'd stop and she would talk to both the dog and the person to make things worse. This all happened right around the same time that another man that hob house had been interested in got married to someone else, so she focused on her work. The government
South Africa eventually got involved in setting up new, spinning and weaving schools with at least twenty six schools established in the first decade of the twentieth century. Eventually, oversight boards for the schools were established in both the transvaal and orange free state and while they initially went to hop house for advice and guidance, she eventually became less involved unless needed. So in october, of one thousand, nine hundred and eight she once again left for england is orange. Free state was technically the orange river river. Calling at that point, but I feel like the orange free state is the name.
People associate most with it. She needed another project. I mean that one that feels like a success. For the most part. I mean it was a success that was focused again on on white people, but like she had started these schools and now they were running themselves, so she needed something else to do. She turned her attention to the suffrage movement. She helped establish the people's suffrage foundation, which advocated for universal adult suffrage. There were restrictions, it wasn't even that, like all men could vote, there were property restrictions and things like ass. It was a universal adult suffrage organization. Her direct involvement in this organization was a little limited, though, because hob house was spending a lot of her time in italy, the milder climate there helped improve her health. She thought being in ITALY also gave her more opportunities to study, lace making and she revived her plan to start a lace making school in south africa. This time.
Oh, she did not do the physical work herself. She met lucius that achieved in venice and stretching worked with constance, clodagh and yawned a rude to set up the school house. Never personally, is it in the school it was in a really remote location. She wasn't physically able to make the trip she was exe. Erin sing angina, which people also say angina, she also had rheumatoid arthritis. She had reached a point where she needed to be carried up and down the steps to her apartment. She eventually went to florence for medical treatment, which she paid for with a loan from Jan smuts smith's that this doctor was really a quack, but hothouse felt like the treatments helped and it really it does seem like, even if the Treatments for suspect she seems to have been able to be more active in mobile for a while afterward parliament passed the south africa act in one thousand, nine hundred and nine unifying Britain's colonies there by this point known as cape colony, transvaal
the tall in orange river. This followed a national convention held in one thousand nine hundred and seven, and one thousand nine hundred and eight at which all of the delegates were white. South africans, black racial and asian residents were completely excluded from the process. I had already witnessed racial segregation and discrimination and south africa, as we talked about in part one her own work was of this. She had known about a separate set of concentration camps for black people during the second anglo boer war, and she had tried to get somebody to investigate and to bring relief to them, but she had never visited them or tried to bring that relief herself for work was focused on other,
people. Similarly, her post war work in south africa was still focused on the boers, not on any people of color whose livelihoods were also destroyed in the war. At the same time, though, she did not agree with segregation or discrimination, and she was just deeply disheartened by the sense that these two groups of white people who had fought a war on someone his homeland had now come together to form a new government that excluded and subjugated the black multiracial and asian population. Hothouse carried this link into her work was sculptor Anton Van wow in the early nineties, teens I have been born in the netherlands and had later moved to south africa, and he had been commissioned was sculpting a monument to commemorate the women and children who had died in concentration camps during the boer war. He worked on the statue in rome, starting from something hob house had seen and recorded in the concentration camp in spring font
in one thousand nine hundred and one the monument- is an obelisk with the statue of two women holding a dying child at the base. They went back and forth over the statues design, but house really did not feel that he was up to the task. At one point, writing to Ian smith's wife. in a letter quote. Oh, why, oh, why did they not put the thing into the hands of road deaths and some are really great sculptor? I don't know why it cracks me up so much that she was like. Obviously, radon should done this, but I see also had some kids turns about the monument itself and whether it really was commemorating all of the women and children who had died in the camps or only the white ones?. And another letter she asked quote if this is really a national monument provided by a national movement or only a free state affair. In spite of her misgivings about the include
giving. The monument hob house travelled a south africa for its unveiling in nineteen thirteen. She also had misgivings about the trip itself. She was worried that she was a well enough to go. This concern turned out to be warranted, although she did make it to cape town. She was too ill to make the journey to the monuments location in bloom fontaine. She had her speech translated and printed, so it can be distributed to pee. will there and charles for shark son of her late friend, caroline for short, read her remarks at the unveiling and thus addressed she talked about what she had witnessed in the camps during the war and how she watched the sculpture being created how she'd travelled to south africa.
Unveiling quote in abeyance to the solidarity of our womanhood and to those nobler traditions of english life, in which I was nurtured and which, by long inheritance are mine. She described her sympathy towards the people who had been held in the camps, both the survivors and those who had died, and she caution to the audience now to open the doors to tyranny and selfishness, saying that in england, leaders were still struggling with this unlearned lesson. She went on to say quote: does not justice bid us remember today how many thousands of the dark race perished? Also in concentration camps, in a quarrel not theirs did they not thus redeem the past was it on an instance of that community of interest which binding all in one roots out racial animosity and may it not,
come about that. The associations with this day will change merging into nobler thoughts. As year by year, you celebrate the morons airing ruin dog. We now and argue raid, the plea of abraham lincoln for the black comes echoing back to me. They will probably help you in some trying time to come to if the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom, the, while in cape and Emily met, another figure. Here's legacy regarding race is complicated, and that was mohammed gandhi. We talked about how the system of racial apartheid, developed and south in our prior episode on the women's march to pretoria and how Eventually, indian was added to that system as a catch all term for anybody from south east asia. There were also laws and policies that specifically applied to this community that were developing. At this point
for example, indian am chinese people living in transvaal had to register, submit their fingerprints and carry paper work at all times. People who had come to south africa from asia on an indenture had to pay a tax to stay in the country after their indenture ended. The supreme court had also ruled that only christian marriages were legally recognised, something that disproportionately affected asians, who were more likely to be hindu or muslim. Gandhi was too time to address. All of this and hothouse heard that he was planning a protest march to pretoria for new year's day, one thousand nine hundred and fourteen. She sent him a telegram. Advising him to hold the march while parliament was in session. Instead, at otherwise. She thought it might just stoke people's hostilities rather than spur the government into action. Gandhi had
also been trying to meet with various government officials, including yon smits, who at this point was secretary of the interior and louie, both who was the prime minister gandhi, later credited hob house with getting both at a fine agree to having a meeting, and she also insisted disputes that he include india. open discussions of matters that affected them. House and gandhi met in person when he came to cape town and he described being with her as spiritually uplifting He was there to wish her farewell when she departed for england in march of nineteen fourteen, and they continued to be friends and correspondents for the rest of her life. That meeting was just a few months before the start of world war, one which you will get to you after a sponsor break. This clip is brought to you by state farm. Family is important and so is having money. That's why
state farm has your back by offering surprisingly great rates on home and auto insurance. They can help in for the things important eu and the great rates help your budget like a good neighbour state farmers. There, go to statefarm dot com for a quote today. You can add a meteorite rise, and I know the person very well who came up with with your story. He wasn't on the road, but he conceptualize did in office cash. I mean, I guess it was really helpful than I had grown up so rough and had survived so much before. Haven't thought there that anything that happened. It was like, as sprinkles on top of a sunday have just surviving state farm, proud, sponsor of the Michael? Do our part gas network listen to new episodes of your favorite michael? Do that shows available on the heart radial, app apple, podcast or wherever you listen to pot guests,
It's only a national museum of african american history and culture seeks to raise three hundred and fifty million dollars to support research programmes and the creation of an endowment fund to assure the african american story living history is preserved, learn more at campaigns that an m a each aid, not as I'd, not eu inspired Are you be solved groundbreaking, videogame series assassins, creed? The echoes of history are cast off his deep and fascinating dive into history? I'm host danny wallace and in this new season we celebrated the fiftyth anniversary of assassins creed. My revisiting history, with a series of port rights of historical figures surpassed by their legends, new episodes, weekly, listen to echoes of history. Behind the legends on I have or wherever you get your pockets the
the hothouses experience during the second anglo boer war led to her becoming an ardent pacifist like she had always been against that war, she became against all war. She was so opposed to what she described as narrow nationalism, which she thought lead to conflict between nations at the start of world war. When she wrote to yawn smooth sea had been named, minister of defence obviously held a ton of different positions during his lifetime. She tried to convince him to keep south africa out of the war. This wasn't entirely his decisions and south Africa was a british dominion, but she was incredibly disappointed in him when Britain instructed south africa to invade german south west, which is now namibia and south africa. Did this also prompted a failed uprisings.
among the poor population of south africa who overall did not want to get involved in another war. So soon have house wrote an anti war open letter to the women of Europe, which read in part quote a hundred years ago. Men proclaimed they fight, as each country asserts that as fighting today to secure the rights, the freedoms, and the independence of all nations war failed to secure these objects. Then can we reasonably suppose it will do so now passed pod as subject jane, Addams invited hob house to attend the international women's conference for peace and freedom in nineteen fifteen. Although hop house wrote the foreword to the report of the conference, proceeding, she did not personally attend.
She was worried about her health and she also didn't think she'd be able to secure the necessary travel documents to get from rome to the hague and back hothouses anti war advocacy had also caught the attention of authorities and she was being kept under surveillance. In spite of that, when she was offered a job in amsterdam working for the international committee of women for permanent peace, she managed to get back into england undetected so that she could have her travel documents updated traveled to amsterdam by a burn switzerland, and while she was there, she met with german ambassador baron, geese bert Bonn, rome burg, to try to advocate for peace or at least for steps to be taken to minimize the impact of the war on the civilian population, how thou state amsterdam working for the international committee of women for permanent peace for about three months. But when she went back to london in october of ninety,
If teen she and a servant she was travelling with, were detained and questioned about their activities They were ultimately released, but only after hob house signed a document stating that she would not quote indulge in propaganda, especially anti war. Propaganda about went back to italy, and british authorities decided that if she came back into the uk, she was not going to be allowed to leave again. She stayed in italy until April of nineteen sixteen, and then she went to switzerland, where she attended a meeting of anti war socialists and that a meeting of the international women's union, when british authorities heard about this I mean they previously made her say she was negative, do any answer warp propaganda. They ordered for her passport to be withdrawn and for her to come back to england by that point, she'd gone back to burn again to try to get permission to travel through
when occupied belgium to see what conditions there were like. She also wanted to arrange relief efforts if she could, when she got a message asking her to stop by british embassy. She suspected there was something afoot, so she left for her tour of belgium without doing so, although she did get I go to belgium. She had a military escort the whole time and her movements were tightly controlled, so she didn't feel like she got a true sense of what things were actually like there. Civilian going into enemy territory without permission in the company of members, enemy military was a big deal but hothouses personal quest for peace during world war. One did not stop there. She started corresponding with german foreign minister godly, Bonn Jago. She got the sense from him that germany was willing to talk terms for peace.
He's, at least unlike an unofficial sense, when hothouse returned to burn british ambassador, sir evelyn grant duff questioned her about what she'd been doing. Understandably, he bounded alarming hebrew, raided her about having unauthorized meetings with german officials travelling to german territory without british permission and basically making herself into an unauthorized one person. Peace delegation
Knowing that she was in trouble. Hob house tried to make a plan to keep a line of communication open to VON jago his office, one that was complete with very spy like cryptic instructions and vague letters and code words. British authorities discovered some of this. They questioned her again. They searched all of her belongings and then sent her back to london. Various authorities described her as everything from a silly old woman to a german agent and propagandist in response to her actions. The defence of the realm act was amended to specifically forbid british subjects from travelling into enemy territory without official permission, hop house was never prosecuted for anything, though, was probably because there were concerns that it would
her into a martyr, particularly among people of dutch descent and south africa, who really saw her as a hero. Habermas was already detested in many circles in britain because of her activities during the boar war and because of her pacifism, and at this point she was seen as doubly a trader fur wished for siding with the boers and then for siding with germany, although she never actually sided with each one. She was consistently on the side of civilians who were being harmed and she was against war. In general, Her reputation took another blow when one of her relatives, stephen hob house, was imprisoned as a conscientious objector
world where one ended in nineteen eighteen hop house thought the situation in continental europe was probably a lot like what it had been in south africa after the second anglo bore war. So once again, she started travelling to assess the situation and raising money to try to provide relief. She cofounded the swiss relief fund for starving children, which later became part of the save the church foreign fund. She also established the russian babies fun and acted as its chair through these,
organizations. She raised money and started distributing things like food and milk in nineteen nineteen. She went to vienna with a friend and found that thousands of children there were still starving. She raised more money to try to help, including contacting Jane Adams, various quaker organizations and other likely supporters for money. She got donations from people. She previously helped in south africa this time to help the children of europe according to her records from january, one thousand nine hundred and twenty to january, one thousand nine hundred and twenty one. Her work provided point, four million hot meals for children. This work took a physical toll on her and in nineteen twenty one, a doctor ordered her to take a month of bed rest. She tried to keep working and she started using a wheelchair, but eventually she returned to ITALY where she had to be hospitalized. The work she had started
Ten years, though, with another one point: four million meals provided between january of nineteen twenty one and march of nineteen twenty two we touched on hob houses, suffrage advocacy earlier and in nineteen twenty two. After a change in the law, she became eligible to vote because she owned property. but we don't know if she actually did in her early life. She had generally sided with the liberal party, but during her work in south africa she had become increasingly socialist. As this should approach. She told her brother Leonard quote: who on earth is there to vote for full suffrage regardless of gender or things like property or ownership, wasn't granted in the uk until
to her death when Emily hothouse turned sixty. She started looking for a home where she could spend her last year's and she fell in love with a house in Saint ives. This time, not faint eve, slim cornwall. Obviously this was much bigger than one person really needed, and its two story lay out wasn't entirely practical for her, considering that sometimes she was not able to climb stairs, but she really really fell in love with it and it had enough room for friends from other parts of europe and from south africa to stay with her when they visited? It was also well beyond her financial means. Her friend to be stained from south africa, took up a collection to help her by it feeling that south africa had never adequately thanked her and owed her a debt of honor. When that collection was, enough yon, smuts and Annie both the widow of the late lui, both contributed the rest,
every year on her birthday, Emily got lots of gifts from south africa and she called them wonder boxes and she often held onto things like dried fruits and honey and biscuits to serve to friends from south africa when they can two visits, while living in saint Ives hob house started putting your personal papers in order and writing and not a biography. She got through life from eighteen. Ninety nine, until the establishment of the weaving schools, but she never finished it and was never published. She also translated the wartime diary of alley button Horst and published it as taunt alley of transvaal button horse had given hothouses journal with the hope that one day it will be published, she was quite
desireth that future generations should know and avoid the cruelty of war. She also translated. Narratives bore women had written for themselves in the camps or if they were written in english by women who didn't actually know English very well, she edited them. She publish these accounts as war without glamour or women's war experiences written by themselves in nineteen. Twenty four eventually have as couldn't handle the stairs
more, she started living only on the bottom floor of the house, using the study as her bedroom she's sold that house in nineteen twenty three and move to a smaller place. She also made a trip to germany to see how it was recovering from the war and how it was faring in light of the penalties against it that were part of the treaty of versailles. She used a wheelchair for mobility on the strip, but she had to cut it short after falling down some stairs and being seriously injured. After getting home again, she issued a plea for relief to be sent to the people of germany. It's come up on the show and number of times that, like
the sanctions that were placed after world war, one fed into a lot of things that led to world war. Two in the last years of her life, Emily hobhouse was increasingly ill and she didn't have a permanent place to live. She died in london on june eighth, one thousand nine hundred and twenty six at the age of sixty six, her cause of death was listed as pleuritis heart failure and cancer. A funeral service in kensington was attended mostly by family and friends. At her request, Emily hothouse,
body was cremated and her ashes were sent to south africa. She had been made an honorary south african citizen and a funeral was held for her in bloemfontein on October 27th, one thousand nine hundred and twenty six. It was the only state funeral ever held for a foreigner in south africa. Thousands of people came to pay their respects. The front rows of the church were filled it out. Four hundred women who have been in the concentration camps or who attended one of the weaving schools that hophouse had established ian smutz and his wife were there, as well as several other government officials funeral procession, escorted hothouses ashes from the church to the women's monument that she had helped design. This procession was led by six boys who had been in the concentration camps, who were now grown men. There were six girls who carried the casket,
handing her ashes and then six people who had been named after her. There was also an orchestra hundreds of women, delegates and official guests. As part of this procession, thousands of people were gathered at the women's monument and multiple people. Gay dresses there, including young smuts, the daughter of you on a rude who had helped establish the lace making school and had become you wanna osborne after getting married, released a flock of white doves as Emily hob houses ashes were interred at the monument and he wrote a tribute to Emily hob house shortly after her death, and it read in part, quote: she worked without ever thinking of any reward. Hers was a service of humanity dedicated to god, describing his own efforts towards the right
the indians and south africa. He also wrote quote she made my way, smooth among them by throwing, in the whole weight of her influence with the indian cause. Emily hothouse was obviously beloved by the board of south africa who she had spent. So much of her life trying to help the town of hob house in the south african province of free state is named after her, but her legacy has not been entirely positive, as we discussed in both parts of this episode. Her work in south africa was focused on white people, particularly the boers, who were a tiny minority compared to the native black population and its diverse color
should have kingdoms, nations, ethnic groups and languages. Apart from her work with gandhi, she did not focus on people of color at all. After her death, Emily hothouses work with the concentration camps and her documentation of the conditions there, which were, in many cases legitimately horrifying and appalling. They became part of bore nationalism in south africa, the camps themselves and the scorched earth policy that lead to there being so many of them both tribute to the development of poor and later afrikander as an identity and one aspect of that identity for a lot of people was the idea of having been oppressed at the hands of the british, which was then used to justify a sense of racial superiority. There is a sense of like the boers, where the real victims here, ignoring the indigenous people of africa, who are left out of that
gosh in entirely the focus of hob houses. Work on only white south africans was only one aspect of all of this. Another was her focus on white women, specifically many of the account she published began with women's experiences on their homes and farms and what happened to them as they were fleeing toward or being forced into the car and tracing camps and some of those experiences involved being the victims of violence carried out by black men, men, these men were either fighting alongside the british or were fighting to protect their own lands and peoples from encroachment or violence by white people. But this context didn't matter. Instead, these accounts reinforced a narrative of white women needing to be protected specifically from violence at the hands of black men and that played a part into the system of racism and apartheid in south africa is the same narrative that was used to support. Why
supremacy in the lynching of black men in the united states. The idea of the borders as having been violently oppressed by the british fed ants you, african or nationalism, heading into the middle of the twentieth century, the national party, which came to power and nineteen forty eight really took Emily hob houses, something of an emblem and used her work to justify a sense of white racial grievance, the national party, as the party that formalised the system of racial apartheid that then remained in place in south africa for almost fifty years. Of course.
None of this happened in isolation and hop houses. Work was not the only thing involved for decades after the war british accounts of it disingenuous Lee also described the boers as dirty and uneducated, including when they were being held in concentration camps, in which their literally was no soap. British accounts are also largely glossed over the worst aspects of the camps focusing on the ones that were somewhat better provision and organised when they were discussed at all. Conversely, most writing about the war in the camps from the boar perspective was in the form of things like poetry and songs. That commemorated immemorial lies the hardship, more objective, historical examination of the war itself and britain's concentration camps for the boers has been a lot more recent, and this is also true of research.
Answer: britain's concentration camps for black south africans during the war I mean a lot of that research is just within the last couple of decades, even though Emily hothouse tried to get someone else to visit and investigate those camps, the fact that apparently no one dead and that she also did not do it herself meant that they were just poorly documented to the general public as much of the war with Happening that trend continued after the war was over and then, as apartheid was implemented of the decades after the war, that became the way bigger focus. So when apartheid was dismantled, the truth and reconciliation commission that followed, it was really focused on the from nineteen sixty until one thousand nine hundred and ninety four. It wasn't looking all the way back to the boer war. So
as I was researching this I I just kept unearthing more and more things about the the camps that were specifically for black people in south africa that are brand new written within the last couple of years. So this is obviously work that is still ongoing and is still in and was delayed in part by hothouses decisions. This is a heavy Do I live episodes tit is: do you have listener mail? That's less heavy! I have a listener tweets bump up. I have a listener. Tweet from Joseph who, tweeted at us, bucky fuller, produced his own world map projection called the dymaxion projection. He really liked the word.
dye maxi and I had never heard of this map projection before I looked it up after getting this tweets. Obviously, this is this follows our mercator projection episode. That is a fascinating projection. We talked about in that episode how the mercator projection is the the globe projected onto a cylinder. This is the globe. You know, which is normally a sphere project The answer you and I close the heater in the geometric shape with twenty phases like a twenty cited dies approximately, but not really and then just unfolded. It is just a fascinating looking one. I guess the convicts one is roughly like the shape of a twenty sided die, but it can also be arranged dick
we I'm doing a bad job of explaining what this looks like, but anyway, it is a map projection where the relative sizes of the land masses are pretty much preserved bright. You have all kinds of disruption in the map itself. That's the thing that is sacrificed to make up for that in this tweets. Joseph also noted that that buckminster fuller had thought about taking his own life, but then did not do that and stop speaking for a year and then invented a bunch of amazing things.
Install fuller is a fascinating person who may be some day will be an episode of the show. I it was the person who is like. Do we not have an episode on him already? I dont think we do so anyway. Thank you for that tweets and for giving me the chance to look at that very well, child protection projection of the map. It looks like a geometry puzzle to me yeah because it does cuz like things form into it, like when you laid out flat there. Big lake sort of you know angled gaps and stuff, and it looks it looks like a puzzle, your support and he's a he popularized, geodesic domes and it That like it, really makes sense to me that he would have a fascination with this. Also like that
oh yeah, the dna is shared between yeah when I first looked at it. I was like this looks almost like a map that was projected onto a geodesic, dome and then taken apart so anyway. Thank you again for that tweet, who, if you like the writer, was about this or any other podcast or history podcast at I heart, radio, dot, com or also all over social media missed in history. That's where you'll find our facebook, twitter, pinterest and instagram you can subscribe to. Our show find iheartradio app wherever ltu podcast. Stuff. You missed in history class is the production of heart radio for more Iheartradio Iheartradio, app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite, shows.
The smithsonian national museum of african american history and culture seeks to raise three hundred and fifty million dollars to support research programmes and the creation of an endowment fund to assure the african american story living history is preserved, learn more at campaigns that an m a each aid, not as I got eu inspired You be solved groundbreaking, videogame series, assassins, creed. The echoes of history are cast off. a deep and fascinating dive into history. I'm hosts danny wallace and in this new season waste celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of assassins creed. My revisiting history, with a series of portraits of historical figures surpassed by their emergence, new episodes, weekly, listen to echoes of history, behind dimensions on I have or wherever you get your pockets.
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Transcript generated on 2022-07-14.