A congeries, I think I can call it
Augusta Fells Savage, a talented sculptor who had faced obstacles due to her sex and race at every turn: [L]ittle of Savage's work survives today. Because she couldn't afford bronze, she often had to make her sculptures out of plaster; most of these have crumbled over time. Other works, like The Harp, were destroyed because they could not be moved or stored, while some of her work has simply disappeared. In 1988, the Schomburg Center in Harlem held a retrospective of her work, but could only locate 19 pieces. Throughout her career, Savage fought to help African American artists publicize their work. "She was keen on creating an infrastructure for black artists," says Wendy NE Ikemoto, curator at the New York Historical Society. "She put a lot of thought and energy into creating these intellectual spaces and networks for the work of black artists." In addition to the students she fostered during the Harlem Renaissance, Savage devoted much of her later life to teaching children and summer art camps, mostly in Saugerties, New York.
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And perhaps a similar story about evanescence and the role of marginality and material culture: a woman author who wrote in a marginal genre in cheap magazines: 'the Reclusive Woman Who Became a Pioneer of Science Fiction'.
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But these often fragile suffrage publications have been preserved and are now digitised: Women's Rights Collection at LSE.
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Luke Hodgkin, 1938-2020: Son of Nobel laureate and radical historian who forged his own path as a mathematician and activist remembered - okay, I am entirely there that Mum, Dorothy Hodgkin, got mentioned first, but hello, he was a scion of a long dynasty of Quaker scientists and reformers (though not a direct descendant of Thomas Hodgkin of the disease and the Aborigines Protection Society) including the pioneer metereologist Luke Howard: He also had plans for a book called Mathematics, Money, Drugs and War designed to “demonstrate how mathematics, with its claim to exact results, has become a central instrument of control” used, for example, not only to design drones for military purposes but to “prove that their workings are effective - and in particular to deny the existence of civilian casualties”.
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And thinking about the Quaker connection and anti-slavery and ethical consumerism etc, this sounds like a fascinating book: Not Made By Slaves: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition - short interview with the author.
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The wife of a celebrated naval captain had been accused of seducing her formerly enslaved nineteen-year-old Black footman: Though John initially testified against his mistress, Ann Inglefield, he later recanted this testimony. He had been terrified of his ‘master’, he now claimed, and had lied in court because Captain Inglefield had pressured him.
A very nuanced discussion of the dynamics and preconceptions in play in this case.
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This strikes me as a quite amazingly obtuse failure to read the room: Johnson trying to set up charity that could fund Downing Street flat revamp: No 10 does not deny reports that scheme could cover costs of works by PM’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds.
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