Marion Kirkland Reid

Marion Kirkland Reid (1815-1902)[1] was an influential Scottish feminist writer, notable for her A Plea for Woman which was first published in 1843 in Edinburgh by William Tait,[2] then published in the United States in 1847, 1848, 1851, and 1852 as Woman, her Education and Influence under the name of Mrs. Hugo Reid.[3][4] She was a member of the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Marion Kirkland Reid
Born
Marion Kirkland

25 March 1815
Glasgow
Died9 March 1902
Shepherd's Bush, London
Known forInfluential Scottish feminist writer
Notable work
A Plea for Woman (1843) Woman, her Education and Influence
Spouse(s)Hugo Reid
Parents
  • James Kirkland (father)
  • Janet Finlay (mother)

Biography

Her father, James Kirkland, was a merchant in Glasgow.[4] Her mother was called Janet Finlay.[5]

Kirkland married Hugo Reid in 1839.[4] Reid was a progressive educationalist from Edinburgh. After Hugo died in 1872, she lived with her only daughter in Hammersmith.

During an event in London during the month of June 1840, Kirkland witnessed some American woman delegates were unable to take part in the World Anti-Slavery Convention. There was a large debate after which Kirkland met the leader of the American woman delegates, Lucretia Mott. This event, and an article on "Women's rights and duties" in the Edinburgh Review of 1841,[2] may have inspired Kirkland's book A Plea for Women, written in 1843. A Plea for Women is most likely the first work in Britain or the USA that gave importance to gaining both civil and political rights for women. The book was especially significant in the early years of the women's suffrage movement in the USA.[6] A Plea for Woman was, as Susanne Ferguson points out in the preface to the modern reprint of the first edition, "a landmark book as the first to be written by a woman, for women, specifically arguing that the possession of the vote is crucial in ending discrimination" against women in education and employment, and to gain equal rights under the law.[3]

Both Marion Reid and Mary Wollstonecraft pointed out that the democratic laws of the French Revolution had still not been enforced on half of the world's population.

References
  1. Marion Read at the Orlando Project, Cambridge University Press
  2. 1959-, Crawford, Robert (2007). Scotland's books : the Penguin history of Scottish literature. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140299403. OCLC 123797020.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. Mrs., Reid, Hugo (1988). A plea for woman (1st ed.). Edinburgh: Polygon. ISBN 0948275561. OCLC 25787999.
  4. "Marion Kirkland Reid". Sunshine for Women. February 2003. Archived from the original on 24 February 2012. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  5. Oxford dictionary of national biography. British Academy., Oxford University Press. (Online ed.). Oxford. ISBN 9780198614128. OCLC 56568095.CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. The biographical dictionary of Scottish women : from the earliest times to 2004. Ewan, Elizabeth., Innes, Sue., Reynolds, Sian. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2006. ISBN 9780748626601. OCLC 367680960.CS1 maint: others (link)
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