Famous Women Freemasons

[Tamrin]

Vinnie Ream (1847 - 1914) Sculptor

Book Review by Jim Tresner, 33°

Glenn Sherwood, A Labor of Love: The Life and Art of Vinnie Ream, Hygiene, Colorado: SunShine Press, 1997, ISBN 0-9615743-6-4, hardback, 440 pages, index, hundreds of illustrations. List price $60.00 substantial discounts available on the Internet

I somehow missed this book when it came out, but it's still available. It is a large book, filled with photographs, and it tells the story of a most interesting young woman. Vinnie Ream (left) was a strikingly beautiful girl with an astonishing range of talents. She was working in the dead letter office in Washington, D.C., when, at the age of 15, she went with a friend to visit a famous sculptor. Holding a piece of clay for the first time in her life, she molded an Indian head with such talent that the sculptor took her on the spot as his student. Before two years had passed, Vinnie had sculpted almost every important person in Washington during the height of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln gave her sittings each day for months. When Lincoln was assassinated and Congress decided to have a statue made to honor him, Vinnie, still a teenager, won the commission. She was the first woman, and is still the youngest person, ever to receive a commission for a work of art from the Federal Government. Her life-size standing statue of Lincoln is still in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

She also painted, composed and published music, played the harp, and wrote poetry. She was living at home with her parents, who took in boarders. One of those boarders was Lilian Pike, the daughter of Albert Pike. Vinnie wanted to meet the great man, and Lilian introduced them. An instant friendship formed. At Vinnie's request, Pike wrote a series of essays, and Vinnie would come at least one evening a week when she and Lilian would sit by the fire and listen to Pike read the essay aloud. Pike's unpublished "Essays to Vinnie" contain some of his best writing, and they range over such topics as life and lawyers in early Arkansas, Pike's adventures as a young man, the importance of books, the wrongs committed against Native Americans, and much more. Returning his friendship, Vinnie played and sang for Pike, wrote poetry to him, and sculpted a bust of Pike which is one of the best ever done.

Vinnie was at the center of such controversies as the attempt to remove President Johnson after the death of Lincoln (Senator Ross who cast the deciding vote against ouster was also a boarder in the Ream home). If you are a Civil War buff, or have an interest in the political life in the nation's capital following the war, or simply want to read about a remarkable woman, this book is for you.

[Tamrin]

Cycling Champion:

Eileen Gray, C.B.E.
Women of the Lodge

[Gaslight]

May 24, 2009 19:35:01 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

I wish to recommend Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses

[/i], by Mary K. Greer.[/quote]
I didn't have much luck with that particular book, one I ordered from Amazon on impulse after seeing it mentioned on a Masonic mailing list. I lost interest after about 50 pages and popped it back on my bookshelf.

Another impulse buy was Sr. Karen Kidd's Haunted Chambers. I began reading that on the train this morning and will probably get through to the end of this one, though like so many books coming out of Cornerstone, it's replete with hideous typography and lack of basic editing. It has the feeling of direct-to-print from a Microsoft Word draft. I realize that Cornerstone is a small independent outfit and know the publisher, but a little more attention to detail would have made a huge difference. Some of Tobias Churton's works on Gnosticism show even more severe symptoms of do-it-yourself publishing, but this is just a personal grouse of mine.

Sr. Karen, by the way, states bluntly that the story of Sabina von Steinbach is fiction.

[Tamrin]

May 25, 2009 11:14:10 GMT 10 Gaslight said:

Sr. Karen, by the way, states bluntly that the story of Sabina von Steinbach is fiction.

So I had heard: I will have to read what she has to say. There has been some debate (and some shonky logic). After I had mentioned Sabina in a paper I presented at the inaugural International Conference on the History of Freemasonry (ICHF) at Edinburgh in 2007, the chair of the session, Prof. Jan Snoek of Heidelberg University, stated that recent studies had corroborated accounts of her work at Strasbourg. He later supplied contact details for more information but the third party concerned has been unhelpful.

[Tamrin]

Annie Besant Documentary
Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

Bro. Annie Besant
(1847 - 1933)

[Tamrin]

ANNIE BESANT

[Excerpt - The International Order of Co-Freemasonry Le Droit Humain, British Federation - Linked Above]

Few are aware that Annie Besant was a prominent Co-Freemason, responsible not only for founding the British Federation, but also in encouraging the worldwide growth of The International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain.

Born in 1847, Annie Besant's involvements ranged from trade unionist and philanthropist, to feminist leader and Fabian socialist. By 1889, "there was scarcely any modern reform (in England) for which she had not worked, written, spoken or suffered. An orator and writer with inspired temperament, Besant's convictions drew others to the Indian independence cause and it is said that George Bernard Shaw considered her Britain's greatest orator.

Annie moved to India in 1893. Annie Besant was largely responsible for the upbringing of the world renowned philosopher K. Krishnamurti, having started the Home Rule League in India and playing a large part in reviving the country's glorious cultural heritage. At a key period in the history of modern India, she attended the 1914 session of the Indian National Congress and had the honour to preside over it in 1917.

In 1877 Annie Besant was arrested for selling birth control pamphlets in London's slums. This helped to liberalize public attitudes though it cost her custody of her daughter. In response, she attained a science degree at London University. In 1888 she led the Match Girls' Strike that opened people's eyes to the cruel, unsafe labor environment of unskilled female factory workers. By then Annie Besant had converted to Theosophy. She became its European, and finally, worldwide head.

Annie Besant first became interested in Freemasonry during her early life in India. Her friends, Francesca and George Arundel, who shared her theosophical interests, took her to Paris to be initiated. Annie's sheer strength of character, in conjunction with her personal charisma, was chiefly responsible for the quick uptake of our Order in the U.K. This enthusiasm soon spread to India, Australia, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere around the world.

[Tamrin]

May 25, 2009 11:14:10 GMT 10 Gaslight said:

Another impulse buy was Sr. Karen Kidd's Haunted Chambers. I began reading that on the train this morning and will probably get through to the end of this one, though like so many books coming out of Cornerstone, it's replete with hideous typography and lack of basic editing. It has the feeling of direct-to-print from a Microsoft Word draft. I realize that Cornerstone is a small independent outfit and know the publisher, but a little more attention to detail would have made a huge difference. Some of Tobias Churton's works on Gnosticism show even more severe symptoms of do-it-yourself publishing, but this is just a personal grouse of mine.

Sr. Karen, by the way, states bluntly that the story of Sabina von Steinbach is fiction.

Blunt indeed! I was familiar with much of the information, having studied and written about the subject for about three decades. Even so, I found Bro. Kidd added substantial detail and analysis and provided a couple of instances I had overlooked or disregarded. My main criticism is that I do not feel Karen weighed the cases for and against Sabina von Steinbach with the same critical insight she demonstrated elsewhere. I will first post what Bro. Kidd wrote about Sabina and then outline the reasons for my criticism.

[Tamrin]

Haunted Chambers:
The Lives of Early Women Freemasons

[/i]
By Karen Kidd[/size][/b]

[Excerpts - Cornerstone, New Orleans, 2009, pp.1 & 11/12 - first chapter Linked Above][/center]

Sabina von Steinbach’s story is an old favorite of Medieval art historians. In that tradition, she was the daughter of Erwin von Steinbach, master builder who raised the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, now in France.

When he died in 1318, with the work left unfinished, Sabina was awarded the contract to complete this great work. And, to this day, her sculptures greet the many visitors and worshipers to the Cathedral. She was “the First Sculptress”, said the 19th Century art historian Elizabeth Fries Ellet:

“The task of ornamenting this noble building was in great part entrusted to the young girl, whose genius had already exhibited itself in modeling. Her sculpted groups, and especially those on the portal of the southern aisle, are of remarkable beauty, and have been admired by visitors during the lapse of ages. Here are allegorical figures representing the Christian Church and Judaism; the first of lofty bearing and winning grace, with crowned heads, bearing the cross in their right hands, and in their left the consecrated host. The other figures stand with eyes downcast and drooping head; in the right hand a broken arrow, in the left the shattered tablets of the Mosaic Law. Besides many other groups are four bas-reliefs representing the glorification of the Virgin; her death and burial on one side and on the other her entrance into heaven and triumphant coronation.

“On one of the scrolls, held by the Apostle John, the following lines are inscribed in Latin:

“’The grace of God with thee, O, Sabina,
“Whose hands from this hard stone have formed my image.’”⁵

Masonic historian George F. Fort, in 1881, declared Sabina’s story to be of “undoubted authenticity” and Sabina “a woman, so early as the thirteenth century, ‘had been made a Freemason’”⁶. If so, Sabina was among the first Freemasons in general, and certainly the first woman Freemason, known by name from the medieval period.

Her story is representative of other women Masons of this time

5. See Ellet’s “Women Artists in All Ages and Countries”, Harper and Brothers, pages 30 and 31

6. See “the Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry”, page 81

There were women – not many, but there were – in the Operative Masonic guilds in Medieval times.

They existed.

Period.

We should reasonably accept this “prima facie evidence” [intervening text] as the basis for that statement and this study. In accepting it as fact, we must also be ready to dismiss any traditions and legends that don’t stand up to scrutiny. No matter how cherished the legend might be. If it didn’t happen, implying it did reduces the credibility of those instances when it did happen. And, so, we must look at evidence of women in the Medieval Masonic guilds with a very critical eye.

And we must give up Sabina von Steinbach.

She never existed.

Period.

This is the judgment of art historians who have, in the past few decades, re-examined the now lost inscription on that scroll held by the hand of St. John, the sculpture attributed to Sabina. They found it doesn’t say what many thought it did. One of these art historians is Leslie Ross, who points out Sabina’s story likely was created to further romanticize her supposed father’s story. For while he did exist, we know little about him:

“Erwin’s daughter, Sabina von Steinbach, was also ‘discovered’ in the nineteenth century. Based on a (now lost) inscription on one of the sculptures on the exterior of the Strasbourg cathedral (naming a ‘Savinae”), a nineteenth-century scholar attributed several famous sculptures both on the exterior and interior of the cathedral to the previously unacknowledged but extremely skillful female sculptor, Sabina von Steinbach, the daughter of Erwin. That the sculptures in question date to a period approximately four decades before Erwin’s work at the cathedral was evidently not recognized then or was seen as being not at all problematic. The name of Sabina von Steinbach continues to occur in studies of medieval female artists.”³³

Natalie Harris Bluestone further explains the misunderstanding:

“The legend of Sabina stems from a misreading and mistranslation of an inscription on the portal, which identifies one “Sabina” as the donor who made it possible for the sculptures to be cut from ‘petra dura’ or hard (read ‘expensive’) stone. ‘Steinbach’ is not a literal translation of ‘petra dura’ and probably stems from some desire to elaborate the romantic legend that has grown up around the name of the (documented) Erwin. In fact, the style of the pseudo-Sabian figures, Ecclesia and Synagogue, indicates a manufacture of ca. 1225, some fifty years before the recorded activity of Erwin and long before his death, which, in the legend provides the occasion for Sabina’s intervention.”

But she adds:

“The truth that inheres in this legend, however, consists in its example of a Western medieval tradition: the woman artist who learns her craft from an artist-father (or some other male relative, such as husband, brother or uncle). In these circumstances, the woman of the artisan class would have had access to such training. Should the male artist died, on occasion the daughter/wife/sister/niece would inherit and run his workshop. Guild records for the late Middle Ages repeatedly describe wives as business partners and specifically allow for them to inherit and take over their deceased husband’s craft or trade.”³⁴

Perhaps this is the reason to remember Sabina’s legend, if not her reality. For her story mimics what it was to be a woman Mason in the Medieval Operative period. To have a chance to be made a Mason, if only thru one’s male relatives from whom the Craft was received. And to carry on, in the memory of a deceased loved one, the labor that was a family tradition.

In this way, Sabina’s is the story and name of a woman who never existed; who represents the many women who did exist but whose stories and names are forgotten.

33. See Ross’ “Artists of the Middle Ages”, published in 2003

34. See Bluestone’s “Double Vision: Perspectives on Gender and the Visual Arts”, published in 1995.

Natalie Harris Bluestone, “Double Vision: Perspectives on Gender and the Visual Arts”, (Fairleigh Dickson University Press, 1995)

Elizabeth Fries Ellet, “Women Artists in All Ages and Counties”, (Harper and Brothers), 1859)

George F. Fort, “The Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry”, (Bradley and Company, 1881)

Leslie Ross, “Artists of the Middle Ages”, (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003)

[Tamrin]

I find Bro. Kidd’s confident and unequivocal dismissal of Sabina von Steinbach to be at odds with the case she presents for the existence of medieval, women stonemasons generally and with instances of her critical insight, demonstrated elsewhere. Her argument, such as it is, is to cite an opinion and to simply accept it. Karen seems to have sacrificed Sabina's memory as part of a rhetorical strategy, to enhance her credibility. Saying, in effect, “I’ve demonstrated my objectivity by rejecting this particular legend.”

Fundamentally, the account is of Erwin von Steinbach, an historically attested architect, having employed his daughter and of her continuing to work at the site after his death.

The account is so unremarkable that, at first sight, the only wonder is that it was told at all. That is until we bear in mind that the memory of Sabina was preserved as a detail in the telling of the famous life of her father. BTW, "'von" means "from" and signifies rank or nobility and "Steinbach" means "stone stream" or "stone tradition" and may originally have been used as a craft appellative before becoming a surname.

The evidence related by Karen in the pages between the quotes above shows this scenario to have been likely (moreover, I suggest that Kidd understated the likelihood for the period and that the scarcity of women stonemasons only became a feature of the late middles ages, after the establishment of journeymen’s lodges, agitating for the exclusion of women and foreigners).

With that scarcity (falsely assumed by many Freemasons to be absolute) this unremarkable account would have attracted attention, acquired legendary status and, inevitably, gloss. Her significance may have been embellished and slender evidence is likely to have justified specific work being attributed to her hand.

The statues attributed to Sabina and the inscription may be legendary gloss. I suggest a verdict of “not proven” one way or another is the most we can say of the legend (I'd say the truth of the basic legend was more likely than not). To say, “She never existed. Period” is going way too far. To debunk the evidence of the statues and an inscription and take this as proof that “Sabina” never existed is akin to saying that Jesus did not exist because the Shroud of Turin has been shown to be unrelated to the first century or that the gospels appear to based on hear-say. Even if we didn't have a long held, oral tradition as evidence of Sabina, as Carl Sagan wrote, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Period.

As the inscription is now "lost," we might wonder if it had ever existed. Even if real, the inscription is ambiguous and might well have referred either to the sculptor or to a donor. As for the reliability of dating statues based on style, one need only bear-in-mind the considerable margin of error allowed when dating texts based on changes in literary style (typically, a relatively fluid discipline): Fashions are often resisted and archaic elements persist; some schools or regions are slower to adapt; some individual scribes and teachers remain conservative; and styles for some purposes (e.g. legal and ecclesiastical) are slower to change than are others, even among writers familiar with the new styles. The upper limits of stylistic dating techniques are more reliable than are the lower limits, where old styles tend to gradually fade into the continuum of their tradition.

Labour and indigenous historians have found that well documented accounts tend to omit all but privileged members of society and a few notorious rebels. To reject any and all oral histories solely because they lack documentation only compounds this exclusion. On the basis of the oral tradition (later embellished) and in the absence of any solid evidence to the contrary, the presumption ought fairly to be that Sabina existed.

Period.

Erwin von Steinbach
Strasbourg Cathedral

[Tamrin]

Vicki León provides the following, light-hearted overview of the controversy:

Uppity Women of Medieval Times

[Excerpt - Book by Vicki León, 1997, Conari Press, Berkeley, p.24]

Sabina von Steinbach

Sometimes an artisan gal had to strike while the iron was hot — or before the corpse got cold. Around 1300, when a master sculptor died in mid-cathedral, Sabina von Steinbach of Strasbourg leaped into action. A stone mason, sculptor, and self-promoter, she supposedly won the contract and completed the job, finishing the statues that still adorn Strasbourg Cathedral. A scroll in the hands of the statue of Saint John says in Latin: “Thanks to the holy piety of this woman, Sabina, who has given me form from this hard stone.” After passing along the story of this save-the-day female hard hat for centuries, historians now think that the Sabina referred to in the inscription was the donor, not the creator. Okay. So now we have two Sabinas: a philanthropist who paid for the Statues and a working-stiff mason (her name’s in the church records) who contributed just as much to the Cathedral through her own gut-straining, back-breaking labor. I say: give ‘em both a round of applause.