Suzanne Clara La Follette (June 24, 1893 – April 23, 1983) was an American journalist and author who advocated for
libertarian feminism
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Groupings
Trad ...
in the first half of the 20th century. As an editor she helped found several magazines. She was an early and ardent feminist and a vocal
anticommunist
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
.
Family
She was born in
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
state into the
politically
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
prominent
La Follette family
The La Follette family is a prominent family in the United States, especially in Wisconsin. Many of the family members have pursued political office.
Members
* Robert M. La Follette, Sr. (1855–1925), District Attorney of Dane County, Wisconsi ...
. Her father was U.S. Congressman
William La Follette; her brothers were politician
William Leroy LaFollette Jr. and
Chester La Follette, a painter.
[La Follette, S., "Beware the State," in Alice Rossi, ed., ''The Feminist Papers'', New York: ]Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
, 1973; New York: Bantam, 1974. Author
Mimi LaFollette Summerskill
Miriam LaFollette "Mimi" Summerskill (June 2, 1917January 31, 2008) was an American educator, author, political activist, and vineyard owner.
Early life and education
Mimi was the eldest of four children. She grew up in Colfax, Washington where he ...
was her niece. While living in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
with her family, Suzanne worked in her father's
Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
office as well as that of his cousin Senator
Robert M. La Follette
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855June 18, 1925), was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the 20th Governor of Wisconsin. A Republican for most of his ...
. As a young woman still in college, she observed many of the great political and intellectual debates of the time at the home shared by the two LaFollette families.
Work
Her full-length book, ''Concerning Women'', published in 1926, broke ground in the 1920s, but went out of print for a second time after a 1972 reprint in the Arno Press ''American Women'' series. In 1973, an excerpt entitled "Beware the State" was included in "The Feminist Papers," an anthology edited by Alice Rossi.
A short biography of La Follette, based on interviews with her grandniece Maryly Rosner, her brother
Chester La Follette, and her colleagues
John Chamberlain, Priscilla Buckley (sister to conservative editor
William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
) and Helen Tremaine, can be found in the article "Suzanne La Follette: The Freewomen" by
Sharon Presley.
[
]
La Follette was active in the League of Equal Opportunity, a feminist organization that, unlike the larger
National Women's Party
The National Woman's Party (NWP) was an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NW ...
, opposed not just sex-based minimum wage legislation, but all such legislation. She explained her opposition to such laws in ''Concerning Women.'' Her economic views, like those of her mentor
Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an American libertarian author, editor first of ''The Freeman'' and then ''The Nation'', educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was an ...
, were libertarian but influenced by
Henry George
Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...
.
She had been interested in Russia since the revolution of 1917 and had been in contact with many exiles, including former president
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; Reforms of Russian orthography, original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months ...
. In the 1930s, La Follette served on the Committee for the Defense of
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, also known as the "
Dewey Commission The Dewey Commission (officially the "Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials") was initiated in March 1937 by the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky. It was named after its chairman, th ...
" as secretary to its chairman, philosopher
John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
. La Follette wrote the summary of the Committee's findings after holding an investigative meeting in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
where Trotsky was in exile (and later murdered by an agent of
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
). Many of the committee's members, like La Follette,
Carlo Tresca
Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fas ...
and Dewey, were not
Trotskyists
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a re ...
, but consisted of anti-
Stalinist
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
,
progressives
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techno ...
and
liberals.
She worked on the literary journal ''
The Freeman
''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chamberl ...
'' both as a contributor and as assistant to the editor,
Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an American libertarian author, editor first of ''The Freeman'' and then ''The Nation'', educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was an ...
, and she later founded a revival of the magazine, called "The New Freeman" in 1932 which lasted only fifteen months. In the early 1950s, she served as a
managing editor
A managing editor (ME) is a senior member of a publication's management team. Typically, the managing editor reports directly to the editor-in-chief and oversees all aspects of the publication.
United States
In the United States, a managing edito ...
of yet another revival of Nock's journal, the
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
periodical ''
The Freeman
''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chamberl ...
'', with
John Chamberlain and
Henry Hazlitt
Henry Stuart Hazlitt (; November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Nation'', ''The American Mercury'', ''Newsweek'', and '' ...
serving as executive editors. In that role, she came into periodic conflict with Hazlitt due to her "sometimes strident way of expressing herself" on behalf of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
. It is this magazine which is widely considered to be an important forerunner to the
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
''
National Review
''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...
'', founded by
William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
, another journal for which she was also an early contributor and managing editor.
However, La Follette was not a traditional conservative. In the 1950s, there was no outlet for libertarian thought so she joined forces with conservatives, who at that time were closer to libertarians than any other group. In the interview conducted by Presley in 1980, her colleague,
John Chamberlain stated that she was a libertarian, not a conservative.
Her feminist views in fact often clashed with the conservative point of view. Based on an interview with Buckley, as reported in th
"Freewoman" profile Presley states, for example, that "in 1964, when the
New York Conservative Party, of which she was a co-founder, came out in favor of anti-
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
laws, she demanded that her name be dropped from the Party's letterhead – and it was."
Early years and education
La Follette was born on a ranch in eastern
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
, the fourth of seven children of a pioneer family that owned large wheat and fruit farms in the rolling hills of the
Palouse
The Palouse ( ) is a distinct geographic region of the northwestern United States, encompassing parts of north central Idaho, southeastern Washington, and, by some definitions, parts of northeast Oregon. It is a major agricultural area, prima ...
and along the
Snake River
The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...
. She grew up in the wide open spaces of the American West. Her grandfather,
John Tabor, was a
49er, having crossed the plains to
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
after service in the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
.
Her father,
William La Follette, had first come to the
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...
as a 16-year-old from
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
. By the turn of the 20th century, he was one of the largest growers and shippers of fruit in the
Inland Empire
The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County to the west. It includes the cities o ...
.
Along with her older siblings, La Follette began her formal studies at
Washington State University
Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...
in
Pullman, Washington
Pullman () is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Thr ...
where her family had moved into a large house her father had built near the college. When William La Follette was elected to Congress in 1910, Suzanne moved with her family to the nation's capital and finished her studies there, graduating from Trinity College (
Trinity Washington University
Trinity Washington University is a private Catholic university in Washington, D.C. Trinity is a comprehensive university with five schools; the undergraduate College of Arts & Sciences maintains its original mission as a liberal arts women's ...
) in 1915.
Washington, D.C.
While completing her college education, La Follette was involved with many of the great events of the day. She worked in her father's congressional office as well as the office of their cousin, Senator
Robert M. La Follette
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr. (June 14, 1855June 18, 1925), was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the 20th Governor of Wisconsin. A Republican for most of his ...
. For much of that period the two LaFollette families lived together in a large home that
William La Follette had purchased in
Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C. Debate and conversation were encouraged at the dinner table and a steady stream politicians, writers, labor leaders, professors and other opinion makers engaged in policy and political arguments late into the evening.
New York City
After her father left Congress. she moved to New York City where she lived and worked for fifty years. She lived for most of this period in the
Chelsea Hotel. Her brother
Chester La Follette's art studio was upstairs from her apartment on the tenth floor. During the 1920s she spent four years as an editor for the ''Freeman'' working as a deputy to
Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an American libertarian author, editor first of ''The Freeman'' and then ''The Nation'', educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was an ...
editing and writing. When the magazine folded, she turned her talents to writing, producing award-winning poetry as well as two books on very different subjects. In ''Concerning Women,'' she broke new ground as she analyzed feminism from the perspective of economic equality. Her former mentor, Nock, found the book to be brilliant and original. In ''Art in America'' she produced a monumental survey of American art from colonial times to the 20th century. The art historian,
Walter Pach
Walter Pach (July 1, 1883 – November 27, 1958) was an artist, critic, lecturer, art adviser, and art historian who wrote extensively about modern art and championed its cause. Through his numerous books, articles, and translations of European ar ...
wrote the introduction.
In the 1930s she organized a new version of the ''Freeman,'' won a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
for study of the fine arts, lectured at the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
, and traveled to
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
as a member of the
Dewey Commission The Dewey Commission (officially the "Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials") was initiated in March 1937 by the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky. It was named after its chairman, th ...
. La Follette served as secretary to its chairman, the philosopher
John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
and wrote the summary of the Commission's findings after conducting investigations in Mexico where
Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
was in exile (soon after he was murdered by a Russian agent). In the 1940s and during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
La Follette worked as director of foreign relief programs for the
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
, focusing her efforts on keeping communists out of the American labor movement. She maintained her close relationship with
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; Reforms of Russian orthography, original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months ...
and other Russians she had befriended through the years.
La Follette returned to editing in the 1950s when she and a number of old colleagues, including
John Chamberlain and
Henry Hazlitt
Henry Stuart Hazlitt (; November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Nation'', ''The American Mercury'', ''Newsweek'', and '' ...
produced a new version of ''The Freeman''. In her final editorial effort she became the founding managing editor of the magazine William F. Buckley Jr. founded in 1955, ''The National Review.'' She retired from this post in 1959 at the age of sixty-six.
Still politically active in the 1960s, she was one of the founders of the
New York Conservative Party. She ran for Congress in 1964 and lost.
In her 2004 book, ''Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary: Completing the Twentieth Century,'' Susan Ware described the many intellectual gifts that made La Follette such a force among the New York intelligencia for so many decades. La Follette was "a rigorous opponent of government intervention. She was a very beautiful woman, with a hilarious sense of humor, a grammatical stickler ... a feminist ... generous and warm-hearted, recalled
William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
, who knew her in later years."
California
In the 1970s, La Follette sold her
Bucks County
Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English ...
farm and left the
Chelsea Hotel and New York City. She returned to the West Coast, settling in
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
, not far from the
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
campus. She is interred in
Colfax, Washington
Colfax is the county seat of Whitman County, Washington, United States.
The population was 2,805 at the 2010 census. The population is estimated at 2,911 per the State of Washington Office of Financial Management in 2018 making Colfax the secon ...
with other family members.
See also
*
Georgism
Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...
*
Individualist feminism
Individualist feminism is a libertarian feminist tradition that emphasizes individualism, personal autonomy, choice, consent, freedom from state-sanctioned discrimination against women, and equality under the law. It also opposes what is consi ...
*
Libertarian conservatism
Libertarian conservatism, also referred to as conservative libertarianism and conservatarianism, is a political and social philosophy that combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the libertarian wing of conservatism and vice ve ...
*
Libertarianism in the United States
In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as ''conservative'' on economic iss ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:La Follette, Suzanne
1893 births
1983 deaths
20th-century American historians
American art historians
American art writers
American editors
American feminist writers
American libertarians
American magazine editors
American political writers
American women historians
American women journalists
Conservative Party of New York State politicians
Individualist feminists
La Follette family
Libertarian theorists
Managing editors
People from Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Journalists from New York City
People from Pullman, Washington
Women art historians
20th-century American women writers
Historians from Pennsylvania
Historians from New York (state)
Women magazine editors
People from Mount Pleasant (Washington, D.C.)
American anti-communists
Historians from Washington (state)