Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jersusalem (Virago)
The founder of Virago publishers Carmen Carlill died this week aged 84.
Particularly in its earlier years Virago published some feminist history books
One that perhaps particularly stood out was Barbara Taylor’s Eve and the New Jersusalem about women, feminism and Owenite socialism in the 1830s and 1840s. The book was published in 1983 and republished in 2016.
As someone who was researching Chartism for a PhD when the book was published it had a significant impact. Chartism which campaigned for adult male suffrage seemed very male dominated. This was not entirely true as research by Dorothy Thompson and others began to underline.
Even so Taylor’s book was a revelation noting that Owenite socialists had talked about and to some extent practised birth control, free love and equality.
Taylor’s 2016 introduction provides much context. She notes that her interest in the period came from the early History Workshop and the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s. The book sought to prove that the demands of socialist feminists at that time had a previously unsuspected history.
Taylor notes that the basis of the book was 24 evening classes under the auspices of WEA at the then Essex Rd Women’s Centre in Islington. It’s a world we have lost and one that could very usefully be reclaimed again today.
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