Johanna Lahr (1867-1904)

Very few women members of the Socialist League have been identified, and these few are mostly middle-class. It has been exciting to learn from the researches of German labor historians Gerd Callesen and Heiner Becker of a Socialist League member who was the wife of a journeyman baker as well as fervid union organizer. Born Annie Klebow in Germany in 1867, she emigrated to England around 1885-87. There she married her common-law partner in 1895 and gave birth to sons in 1899 and 1903, dying in childbirth in 1904 at the age of 37.

Lahr was a member of the Bloomsbury branch of the League and active speaker between 1888 and 1890, when she would have been 21-22 years of age. Commonweal records that she delivered 13 speeches during March 1888 alone! During this period she corresponded with Friedrich Engels, asking for his advice in understanding Marx’s theories. She would probably have known Morris briefly before he left the Socialist League in 1889; like Morris she was an anti-parliamentarian, but most likely a member of the League’s anarchist wing.

There were about 2000 German bakers in England and Wales in the period 1880-1910, and they formed a familiar presence in London’s east end, as memorialized in Israel Zangwill’s account of east London Jewish life in Children of the Ghetto (1892) and in exhibits at the present-day London Jewish Museum. Lahr’s 1889 leaflet, “The Poorest of the Wage Slaves,” is a rare extant instance of a polemical essay by an impoverished working class woman of the period. It describes with indignation the conditions of labor experienced by those in her husband’s occupation, and urges all journeyman bakers to unionize in order to gain better conditions.

Because Lahr’s leaflet may be difficult to read, a few passages are excerpted here:

The journeymen bakers must admit that they are, in comparison with any other skilled workers, the poorest, the most sweated, wretched slaves; that their present condition is a most deplorable one, and a disgrace to civilisation. The extraordinary long hours, varying from 14 to 16 hours a day, for the first five days of the week, 22 hours on Saturday, and Sunday work as well, makes up an average of from 90 to 120 hours each week; and in most cases the poor wretches have to work in filthy, unhealthy bakehouses not fit for a dog, let alone a human being. These wage-slaves are injured in health, and are broken men before they enter into full manhood; their lives cut short, and an early grave their reward. Now, lads, the time has arrived when you should bind yourselves together under the Banner of Unity, and strike the blow. God knows, your demands are too moderate; but as the saying goes, with eating commences a craving for more. . . .

Men and women, you are the producers of all wealth; therefore courage, brothers and sisters! Come and join hands with your fellows, no matter what creed or nationality they belong to, and we will win the battle.

Have no trust in your Houses of Parliament. The sooner they are turned into a washhouses or bakehouses the better for the workers. I am with you heart and spirit, and will never tire of helping you to a brighter future, where freedom, love, and harmony shall reign; where the dawn of the morning shall be greeted with gladness, and work be only a pleasure; and where the burden of life and sorrow-stricken faces shall disappear like a snow-white mist in the morning. 

JOHANNA LAHR.
Henry Detloff, Printer. 18 Sun Street, Finsbury, London. E.C.

In November 1890 a widespread strike for bakers’ union rights was conducted in London, and Johanna Lahr’s flyer might well have been distributed during this strike. The bakers won the conflict, in part because of the support of London Trade Union Council and trade unionist leader John Burns, who addressed assemblies of the bakers. One can only regret that this firm-minded and courageous woman died at 37, perhaps a victim of the difficult conditions under which women gave birth.

We owe thanks to Gerd Callesen for sending us this information, and to Ms. Sheila Lahr for this image of her ancestor’s pamphlet. A longer article on Lahr will appear in the July 2012 Newsletter of the William Morris Society in the United States. Mr. Callesen is eager to learn more about Lahr, and may be reached at gerd.callesen@chello.at. 

Martha Nussbaum, Comte, Mill, Tagore… and William Morris

           Martha Nussbaum’s “Reinventing the Civil Religion:  Comte, Mill, Tagore” in the most recent issue of the scholarly journal Victorian Studies (54.1 [dated Autumn 2011], pp. 7-34) is an important and fascinating analysis of attempts to form a “humanistic ‘civil religion’ to counteract the power of egoism and greed” (7) in the nineteenth century.  Critiquing Auguste Comte (as did J. S. Mill) for almost comically appropriating concepts of ritual from traditional religion to inculcate civic virtue, Nussbaum prefers Mill’s posthumously-published essay, “The Utility of Religion,” which conceded the need to have some form of communal celebration but evaded Comte’s attempts at rigid control and shaping of subjectivities.  The most constructive, practicable, and humane conceptualization of a civic religion, according to Nussbaum, was undertaken by Rabindranath Tagore, whose The Religion of Man (1931), unlike Comte’s “Religion of Humanity,” celebrated artistic creativity, the importance of the individual, and inclusiveness  (women as well as men, for example).  Commenting on Tagore’s indebtedness to the religious sect of the Bauls for his conception of civic religion, Nussbaum connects this source to the idea that “society must preserve at its heart, and continually have access to, a kind of fresh joy and delight in the world, in nature, and in people, preferring love and joy to the dead lives of material acquisition that so many adults end up living, and preferring continual questioning and searching to any comforting settled answers” (23). 

I wonder how many others, like me, thought of William Morris’s News from Nowhere and its representation of communal joy, fellowship, and delight in work and nature in reading Nussbaum’s article.  Indeed, Chp. 18 of News from Nowhere explicitly takes up the topic of “The Religion of Humanity”:

‘More akin to our way of looking at life was the spirit of the Middle Ages to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth….now, where is the difficulty in accepting the religion of humanity, when the men and women who go to make up humanity are free, happy, and energetic at least, and most commonly beautiful of body also, and surrounded by beautiful things of their own fashioning, and a nature bettered and not worsened by contact with mankind?’

Indeed, the last chapter of News from Nowhere involves the “haysel” feast, a communal celebration held in a medieval church that is “gaily dressed up for this latter-day festival, with festoons of flowers from arch to arch” (Chp. 32).

            Perhaps other Morriseans will know whether Morris exerted any direct influence on Tagore; my sole knowledge of a connection is the mention of Morris in 1 or 2 letters from Sir William Rothenstein to Tagore.  In any case I hope that Martha Nussbaum will reconsider Morris’s own role in creating an important paradigm of civic religion founded in creativity, inclusion, and social justice.

--Linda K. Hughes

Declutter for Civilization's Sake

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

In the years since William Morris first delivered his “The Beauty of Life” lecture in 1880, this quotation has taken on a life of its own. People put it on their bulletin boards, transcribe it in their diaries, and tweet about it on Twitter.

For many, it also helps them to change their lives. “The William Morris Project”, on a blog called “Pancakes and French Fries”, was created by a former lawyer named Jules, who found herself disturbed by the death of her friend's parents in 2011, and the things they had left behind. Instead of a carefully curated collection of objects that could have told volumes about their lives, they had left a white noise of designer handbags, eighties clothes, and redundant kitchen utensils.

With Morris's quotation as her guide, Jules set out to escape the fate of her friend's parents. Naturally, her project focused on de-cluttering her home, keeping only useful or beautiful things. Her project is still going today, and has a large following—it's even inspired others to follow suit.

At first, it may seem that the people involved in the project are overlooking Morris's depth by focusing on a piece of interior decorating advice, but Morris wouldn't think so. He dubbed his quotation “a golden rule that will fit everybody”, calling upon people to follow it not just for their own well being, but to help revive true art, and to save Society from the oblivion of consumption. At least, that's the message he brought to his Birmingham audience in 1880:

“that message is, in short, to call on you to face the latest danger which civilisation is threatened with, a danger of her own breeding : that men in struggling towards the complete attainment of all the luxuries of life for the strongest portion of their race should deprive their whole race of all the beauty of life...”

By forgoing lots of silly luxury items in favor of a few useful and beautiful things, Morris's followers would be resisting the tide of Victorian Capitalism, and they would become the saviors of Society. Perhaps Jules and her followers are the same: tidying up our culture of excess, one drawer at a time.

April feature continued: Places to visit in the United States to see works by Morris and Morris and Co.

United States - Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, New York to John F. Kennedy Library, Solano County, California. Both of these libraries have a Kelmscott Chaucer. Check out this blog updating who owns copies of the book. Of the 425 paper and 14 vellum copies, William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson have been able to locate about "two-thirds." For more information, see:

http://kelmscottchaucer.wordpress.com.

April feature continued: Places to visit in the United States to see works by Morris and Morris and Co.

Illinois - Augustana College. Rock Island, Illinois. Augustana College is featuring an exhibit titled "William Morris: Visions of An Ideal World" until 17 May. According to the Augustana College website, the exhibit includes works "produced by the Kelmscott Press, a private printing press started by Morris in 1891. Complementing the books will be Arts and Crafts objects from the Augustana College Art Museum. Other items in the display will show the beauty of Morris' designs for textiles and wallpaper as reproduced in contemporary books and on a calendar, scarf, china, tile, and container. Hours are 7:30 a.m.-midnight." For more information, visit:

http://www.augustana.edu/x39663.xml

March Exhibit by 2012 WMS Award Winner a Success

Leslie Harwood at her Exhibition.

Last month, residents of Milwaukee could stroll down to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art History Gallery to see the exhibit “William Morris’ Earthly Paradise: Precursor to the Private Press Movement”. This was curated by Leslie Harwood, the 2012 winner of the William Morris Society Fellowship. We've written about her project here; the award went towards installation costs, and printing the lovely catalogue.

With the exhibition and catalogue, Harwood argued convincingly that the failure of the Chiswick Press to produce satisfactory trial pages of Morris and Burne-Jones's illustrated Earthy Paradise, followed by the failure of that whole project, strongly motivated Morris to found the Kelmscott Press. She also highlighted the influence of the Kelmscott Press over subsequent Arts & Crafts private presses.

The event showed off the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Special Collections, including The Earthly Paradise printed by the Kelmscott Press. Another crown jewel of the exhibition, loaned by the Milwaukee Public Library, was a fifteenth-century Venetian book (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili) that inspired Morris and Burne- Jones in their designs for the Kelmscott Press.

Harwood's illustrated catalogue is like an exhibit unto itself, and it gives a thorough background to the original Earthly Paradise project and the Kelmscott Press. It also considers the Vale Press, the Essex House Press, the Elston Press, and the Golden Cockerel Press in relation to the Kelmscott Press. Electronic versions of the catalogue are available free of charge, just contact Ms. Harwood at leslie.harwood@gmail.com.

Click 'Read More' to see photos of the event:

April feature continued: Places to visit in the United States to see works by Morris and Morris and Co.

On your way to visit William Morris Society president Margaretta Frederick at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, DE, take a trip to Arden, Delaware, founded in 1900 as a utopian community partially inspired by Morris's ideas. The community has a fascinating past. To quote from the Arden Artists website: "Arden was founded in 1900 by sculptor Frank Stephens and architect Will Price. They were part of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Philadelphia. Financial support for the project came from the soap-manufacturer Henry Fels." To learn more visit the website:

http://www.ardenartists.com/interest.htm