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Marie Stopes’ Sexual Revolution and the Birth Control Movement pp 35–58Cite as

Passionate About Palaeobotany

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Abstract

This chapter traces Marie’s progress from a hardworking but undistinguished schoolgirl to a world-renown academic with a passion for palaeobotany. Marie’s brilliant career as a student at UCL is analysed as is her time at the University of Munich where she gained her doctorate. Marie was appointed the first female lecturer at the University of Manchester and her experiences in the university and the city are described. Marie left to return to research at UCL and continued her romantic and professional relationship with Professor Kenjiro Fujii who she had met in Munich. Even after this romance ended she continued to organise a research expedition to Japan and undertook research in Canada.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 58463.

  2. 2.

    Stopes, Marie, The Study of Plant Life. (London, 1906) p. 2.

  3. 3.

    Stopes, Marie, Botany. The Study of Plant Life. (London, 1919) p. 60.

  4. 4.

    British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 58463.

  5. 5.

    British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 54863.

  6. 6.

    Correspondence of Clothilde Von Wyss to Marie Stopes. British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 58538.

  7. 7.

    June Rose describes Marie’s academic journey through school to university in her chapter ‘Scholarly Pursuits’, Marie Stopes. (pp. 21–45). Ruth Hall, Marie Stopes, provides insights into Marie’s academic career ‘Birth of a Superior Brain’ (pp. 15–34).

  8. 8.

    Hall , Lesley A., ‘The Subject Is Obscene’, Women’s History Review, 2013, vol. 22, issue 2, p. 255.

  9. 9.

    Stopes, Marie, ‘The Leaf -Structure of Cordaites’, New Physiologist, 1903.

    Stopes, Marie ‘Epidermoidal Layer of Calamite Roots’. Annals of Botany, September 1903.

  10. 10.

    Maude , Aylmer, Authorised Life. (London, 1924) pp. 47–53.

  11. 11.

    Stopes-Roe, Harry and Scott, Ian, Marie Stopes. (London, 1970) p. 30.

  12. 12.

    Keith Briant, the early biographer of Marie Stopes, names the professor as Kuyiro in his translation from the Japanese, but he is referred to as Kenjiro by Marie’s later biographers such as Ruth Hall and June Rose and this nomenclature is adopted.

  13. 13.

    Hall, Ruth , Marie Stopes. (London, 1976) p. 50.

  14. 14.

    University of Manchester Special Collections.

  15. 15.

    Eaton, P. and Warwick, M., Marie Stopes. A Preliminary Checklist of Her Writings. (London, 1977) p. 17.

  16. 16.

    Eaton, Peter and Warwick, Marilyn, Marie Stopes. (London, 1977) p. 17.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., p. 18.

  18. 18.

    Stopes, Marie, ‘A Note on Wounded Calamites’, Annals of Botany, April 1907, vol. XX1, issue LXXXII.

  19. 19.

    University of Manchester Archives.

  20. 20.

    Gelsthorpe , David, Geological Curators Group. (2007) p. 376.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., p. 377.

  22. 22.

    Stopes, Marie, Ancient Plants. (London, 1910) p. 99.

  23. 23.

    Postcards in personal collection of Clare Debenham.

  24. 24.

    Marie Stopes’ letter written to Winnie Stopes. British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 58455.

  25. 25.

    Maude , Aylmer, Authorised Life of Marie Stopes. (London, 1924) p. 59. Scott’s signature is in the relevant Visitors’ Book in the University of Manchester Archives.

  26. 26.

    Gelsthorpe , David, (2007) p. 377.

  27. 27.

    British Library, Stopes Papers, Add MSS 58463-56.

  28. 28.

    Maude , Aylmer, Marie Stopes. (London, 1924) p. 61.

  29. 29.

    Rowbotham , Sheila, Rebel Crossings. (London, 2016) p. 120.

  30. 30.

    Kenjiro Fuji. British Library, Stopes Papers Add MSS 58454 f.78.

  31. 31.

    These incidents appeared later in Marie’s supposedly fictionalised Love Letters of a Japanese. (London, 1919).

  32. 32.

    Stopes, Marie, A Journal from Japan. (London, 1909).

  33. 33.

    Ibid., p. 72.

  34. 34.

    Stopes, Marie (pseud, G.N. Mortlake ), Love Letters of a Japanese. (London, 1919).

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 64–65, 34–347.

  36. 36.

    Hall , Ruth, Marie Stopes. p. 77.

  37. 37.

    Stopes, Marie, The “Fern Lodges” Carboniferous flora of St. John, Brunswick. (Ottawa, 1914) p. 11.

  38. 38.

    Husak, Carla, Gender, Place and Culture. 2014, vol. 21, issue 7, p. 889.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 894.

  40. 40.

    Stopes, Marie, The Study of Plant Life of Young People. (London, 1906).

    Stopes, Marie, Ancient Plants. (London, 1910).

    Stopes, Marie, Botany or the Modern Study of Plants. (London, 1919).

  41. 41.

    Gelsthorpe , David, (London, 2007) p. 379.

  42. 42.

    Falcon-Lang, H., Scottish Journal of Geology, April 2008.

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  1. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Clare Debenham

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  1. Clare Debenham
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Debenham, C. (2018). Passionate About Palaeobotany. In: Marie Stopes’ Sexual Revolution and the Birth Control Movement. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71664-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71664-0_3

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