Helena Born (1860–1901) was a labor and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

activist. After leaving a life of privilege, she and her friend Miriam Daniell became labor union organizers in the late 1880s. They emigrated to the United States in 1890, where they joined the Boston anarchists and Born attempted to live a life of feminist and

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

principles.

Life

Helena Born was raised in an affluent family near

Bristol, England Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in S ...

. She attended a girls' academy and her family restricted her from learning a trade or advancing to university study. Her family supplied Born with an income such that she did not need to work, but Born additionally chose not to participate in the gentry. Born collected labor and women's rights newspaper articles in her youth and later joined the feminist organization Bristol Women's Liberal Association in her twenties. Born and her friend, Miriam Daniell, joined the British socialist movement and moved into a Bristol working class neighborhood. Born became the secretary of the Bristol Gas Workers and General Laborers Union. Born supported their 1889 strike with fundraising, picketing, and speeches. She attempted to organize local seamstresses unsuccessfully. In 1890, she and Daniell emigrated to the United States. Born changed her focus in America. Whereas she was politically active in Britain, she did not participate in American politics, and instead focused on living a principled, feminist life. She found that these principles overlapped with that of the Boston anarchists, which provided a theoretical basis for her goals. In seeking to live a life of feminist practice, she forwent her family's passive income and took up typesetting. Born believed that her most useful political activism was her personal commitment to noncooperation with repressive social institutions. To further extricate herself from these norms, she and Daniell built a house on a California commune, where they hoped to stay indefinitely. The house, however, was soon destroyed, and Daniell died in 1894. Born traveled back to Boston, where she opened a restaurant with her lover William Bailie. Though Bailie was married, they did not hide their relationship. Born died of uterine or

cervical cancer Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Early on, typically no symptoms are seen. Later symptoms may include abnormal ...

in 1901.

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Life

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Further reading