"The value of this splendid new biography is that it enables us to get to know her better than ever before" "In this perceptive biography......June Rose removes [Fry] from her pedestal to show her as she really was: complex, contradictory, but courageously defying the conventions of her age"

During her lifetime this remarkable woman aroused hostility as well as admiration. Quakers found her worldliness disquieting; not of her fellow penal reformers approved of her unorthodox ways and the irregular authority conferred upon her and her lady prison visitors; her family felt neglected. Elizabeth Fry herself was tortured throughout her life by self-doubt and anxiety, torn between the opposing demands of her family, her religion and her public, and disturbed by her own attraction to the high life.

This is a very interesting biography of Elizabeth Fry, a 19th century English Quaker who became deeply involved in prison reform. Elizabeth Fry was an enigma: she devoted many hours working to improve conditions for female prisoners, especially the poor, which she did on a religious basis. However, she grew up in a very wealthy Quaker family, and expected to have fine things -- clothing made of good quality materials, fine food, etc. throughout her life (1780-1845). She liked to mingle with royalty, lecturing to them about prison reform. She depended upon her brothers and brothers-in-law for financing both for her prison work and her family; her husband went bankrupt. Elizabeth felt that women should work outside the home only if they were poor and needed to work or if they were doing volunteer work. Although she was a Quaker minister, many Friends disapproved of her lifestyle, and Elizabeth was unable to attend many of her children's weddings since they married "outside of Meeting." She felt the family was important, but neglected her own.

Ms. Rose’s biography of Elizabeth Fry is primarily based on original manuscripts, particularly Elizabeth’s unedited journals plus journals and letters of her relatives and friends. Throughout the book, Ms. Rose gives a very well thought-out description and evaluation of Elizabeth’s life, pointing out her weaknesses in addition to her strengths, and several times explaining how circumstances differed in Elizabeth’s time from today. Being an American Friend who admires Lucretia Mott, I was interested in Ms. Rose’s description of Elizabeth’s attitude toward and treatment of Lucretia when the latter was in London for the 1840 World’s Anti-Slavery Convention (p.182-185 of the 1994 edition published by the Quaker Home Service).

Includes a few endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.

Highly recommended ( )

Prisons; Discipline > Social Problems, Social Services > Social Sciences

Prisons; Discipline > Social Problems, Social Services > Social Sciences