"Really, I’m writing to say ‘thank you’."

December 26, 2019 12:48 PM

Dear Friend is a letter-writing project, based in Manchester, UK, "celebrating women in public life and struggles for liberation". It seems to be dormant now (last letter dated March 2018, last tweet dated October 2017). Letters on the site include ones to Eva Gore-Booth (writer, suffragist and lesbian activist), Margaret Humphreys (social worker), Margaret Blair Ramsey (social reformer), Jan Bridget (youth worker and lesbian activist), Ada Nield Chew (suffragist), Phyllis Monk (teacher) and Sharon Creech (author). Other letters are to friends and family members.
posted by paduasoy (1 comment total)

Eva Gore - Booth’s elder sister Constance Georgina Gore-Booth played a part in the Easter Rising of 1916 and was also the first woman elected to the British Parliament ent. She was a member of Sinn Fein. Eva Gore - Booth was a pacifist. Her elder sister was not. Both women shared a deep concern for poor people in Ireland and did what they could to help.
The second woman elected to the British Parliament was Bernadette Devlin. I actually got to meet her in San Francisco. She wrote of seeing the little brass plate with Constance Gore - Booth’s name. This was where male MPs put their top - hats and canes. She used neither.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:39 PM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]