DUTCH FEMINIST | Rosa Manus Remembered

Rosa Manus (1881-1942)

Charles Leidschendam Boissevain just wrote to me about a lecture this past week about Dutch feminist Rosette Susanna ("Rosa") Manus. The lecture was by  Prof. Francisca de Haan, who edited with Myriam Everard a 700-page biography of Manus with multiple authors of specialized chapters. A 16-page report on the book – in English! 😗👍 – is available here.

In her lecture at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, Prof. de Haan argues that Manus is at least as important to the women’s movement as Aletta Jacobs, after whom a foundation is named. 

There are several connections between Manus and American suffragist Inez Milholland Boissevain. Manus:

• Was, like Inez, active in the movements for both women's rights and peace.
• Organized in 1913 an important first World Congress on women's emancipation and world peace. That was the same year as the January march in Washington led by Inez on horseback. 
• Worked on women's issues with Dr. Mia (Maria) Boissevain (1878-1959). Mia is mentioned on p. 13 of the report cited in the first paragraph above. Mia's husband Robert was the nephew of Eugen Boissevain, who married Inez Milholland in July 1913.
• Was arrested by the Nazis the year after they invaded Holland, and was killed by them in 1942 in the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Mia's husband Robert was also killed by the Nazis by starvation and disease in another concentration camp. Mia and Robert, and their children including Charles, are included by Israel's Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations.

The new biography was published in Leiden in 2016 by Brill Publishers, which has been around since 1683. It is publicized by Atria, an Amsterdam nonprofit that works for a gender equality agenda. Atria's newest project is a Wiki-writing workshop on the 3rd Friday of every month to equalize the number of articles on women in Wikipedia.  One of their topics to cover is the Men's League for Woman Suffrage, in which Eugen Boissevain played a role along with his friend Max Eastman and Inez Milholland's father John E. Milholland. The director of Atria is Renée Römkens. 

References:

Atria, Netherlands Institute for Gender Equality and Women's History, Vijzelstraat 20,

1017 HK Amsterdam. info@atria.nl. Also:

• Streets of Amsterdam (AT5) on Rosa Manus, January 9, 2017

• Amsterdam: Rosa Manus was more important than Aletta Jacobs, AD and Het Parool, December 14, 2016