Adeline Knapp
Encyclopedia
Adeline E. Knapp was an American journalist
, author, social activist, environmentalist and educator, who is today remembered largely for her tempestuous lesbian
relationship with Charlotte Perkins Gilman
. In her lifetime, Knapp was known as a fixture of the turn-of-the-century San Francisco Bay Area
literary scene. An outspoken writer who often addressed controversial topics in her columns for the San Francisco Call
, Knapp wrote on a wide range of subjects from livestock
to the Annexation of Hawaii. Though often drawn to progressive
causes like child labor
and conservation
, Knapp also tended to espouse reactionary
views, as evidenced by her anti-Chinese sentiments and criticisms of the women's suffrage
movement. At a time when many American women were joining the movement to extend political and voting rights to women, Knapp spoke in state senate hearings in New York expressing doubts about the benefits of suffrage to women, and she allowed her speeches and letters on the topic to be used as propaganda by the anti-suffragism
movement. Knapp was also the author of numerous short stories, as well as a novel set in the Arizona
desert — works reflecting her outdoor enthusiast
sensibilities, keen intellect, and interest in Western regionalism
. These works, though praised in her lifetime, today have few readers among enthusiasts of Western fiction
.
to Lyman and Adeline (née Maxwell) Knapp. She was one of nine children born to this family. Knapp was named after her mother, Adeline. In order to distinguish between the two women, Knapp was given the nickname of Dellie, which was used during her childhood. Throughout her adult life, though, she was known simply as "Delle" to her family and friends.
As a young child, when she wasn't spending time with the family's horses, Knapp showed a strong interest in writing. When she was only eight years old, she wrote short poems and stories to entertain her friends. Then when she was 14 years of age, she published a volume of her writing. She also published her own four-page, 12-column newspaper, entitled The Queen City Enterprise. As a monthly newspaper, it flourished for nearly two years and gave her the first taste of life in journalism. This was considered a huge accomplishment for young women at her age. She continued on while publishing the Aspirant in Buffalo and became widely known as a poetess. In 1877, she became a member of the National Amateur Press Association. While she often expressed an interest to one day pursue a career in medicine, it was also thought by her family that she would most likely end up pursuing a career in journalism.
While Knapp's mother had never worked outside of the home, her father, Lyman Knapp, was a highly respected and hard-working man in the Buffalo community. In 1935, Mr. Knapp arrived in Buffalo via Hudson
and began working in the wholesale and retail grocery business. After just a few short years, he became a partner in a distilling business. For years, he was a senior member of the brokerage firm
of Knapp & Gillett. For several years, he was also Chief Engineer with the Volunteer Fire Department. And finally, he was active in founding the Fireman's Benevolent Association, and assisted in organizing the first Water Works Company. The family was considerably financially secure.
Knapp's parents instilled a strong work ethic in the lives of their children. By the age of 17, while continuing to live at the family home with her parents, young Adeline felt compelled to begin making her own way in life. She began seeking employment and soon started working in a large mercantile house. For seven years, she set aside her journalistic pursuits and worked diligently in the mercantile. However, at the age of 24, opportunity in the form of the Buffalo Christian Advocate came knocking and she began working as an associate editor for the local news journal.
Not to be outdone by her father and his numerous pursuits, in addition to working at the Advocate, Knapp also began attending school at the University of Buffalo studying medicine. Her educational career lasted for three years, before she made the decision to leave Buffalo and head for California.
, taking a position on staff at the San Francisco Call
, where she founded the paper's Woman's Department, which became very popular.
While she continued her work with the Call, within a year after her arrival in California, she purchased the weekly Alameda County
Express and began the life of a country editor and publisher. In this capacity, she was essentially the editor, business manager, solicitor, subscription and advertising agent, proofreader, collector and mailing clerk, and delivery staff all rolled into one. After a year and a half, she merged the Express with the Oakland Daily Tribune.
After the Express was consolidated with the Tribune, she began serving the Call as the staff coast and foreign exchange editor. However, when her background and knowledge regarding horses and cattle were discovered, she was transferred to the livestock
department. Under the pen name of Miss Russell, she contributed an article every Sunday on the subject of horses and cattle, while she also wrote a story on a variety of subjects under her own name.
Knapp soon established herself as an important member of the San Francisco Bay Area
literary community, particularly its East Bay
contingent, which included Joaquin Miller
, Edwin Markham
, Ina Coolbrith
, Charles Keeler
, and Yone Noguchi
.
It was during her time in the Bay Area that her interest in women's issues began to take root. Much of her personal time was spent working with the San Francisco Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, which was a prominent organization uniting women across the United States in advocating for woman's suffrage. They counted a membership between 600 – 700 women in San Francisco. For approximately ten years, she was a strong advocate for women in business, female suffrage, and equality of the sexes. However, her ideals would end up changing around the turn of the 20th century.
In April 1891, Knapp met the writer Charlotte Perkins Stetson
(later Gilman), who had separated from her husband and recently moved to California. The two women soon became close friends, and in September, they began living together at 673 Grove Street. Their friendship was seemingly inseparable. However, time has shown that Knapp is oftentimes remembered today for her tempestuous relationship with Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Gilman wrote about Knapp in her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, that "the pleasure in the new relation is that I now have some one to love me, and whom I love."
"It is possible, but not certain, that Charlotte and Delle were lovers", writes Gilman's biographer Ann Lane. The most explicit evidence that they were, comes from Stetson's letter to her future husband:
By 1893, the relationship had become acrimonious. The editor of Gilman's diaries gives the following account of the breakup:
In her autobiography, Gilman describes her breakup with "Dora" (as she refers to Knapp in the autobiography) in very harsh terms:
During the crisis, Knapp's correspondence frequently dominated the Calls front pages. On March 9, a long piece signed by Knapp and dated March 1, entitled "Hawaii's Hope", covered all of the front page and a third of page two. It was, by this time, some six weeks since the bloodless anti-royalist coup which had deposed Queen Liliuokalani, and a visitor "would scarcely believe himself to be in the midst of riot and upheaval of the law."
While Knapp evidently felt some sorrow for the deposed queen and princess, she noted that the Queen Dowager Kapiolani
was "avowedly jubilant over the present state of affairs." But she was under no illusions that the native Hawaiians supported annexation:
The problems of the Hawaiian monarchy were only one reason Knapp thought resistance movements unlikely to succeed. "The natives, even should they desire to resist, are too uncertain themselves as to what they want to unite in any concerted action. They have no money, no arms, no leaders, and really no cause save their ancient traditions, which have so far lapsed, since the overthrow of the tabu, as to make no very powerful appeal to their national pride." Moreover, "they themselves are dying out at the rate of nearly 1000 a year, and but a handful are left of the hundreds of thousands that once swarmed in the islands." These arguments helped Knapp to justify what she saw as the inevitable American appropriation of the islands:
For those who might dispute the significance of these "little islands in the midst of the Pacific", Knapp suggested that:
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After Knapp's Hawaiian visit, she traveled to the Far East
writing accounts of her journey to Yokohama
and Manila
.
Following the Spanish-American War
, Knapp moved from San Francisco, California to the Philippines
. She was one of a thousand volunteer teachers known as the Thomasites
who went to the Philippines aboard the ship Thomas to teach in the new Filipino schools.
In 1902, Knapp authored a history book about the Philippines. It traced Philippine history from Magellan's discovery, until the arrival of the Americans. Her book was the first history of the Philippines written for school children. In presenting her book, she shared that she wrote it for the children, with the intention to bring a history of the land within their reach for the first time.
s.
One of Knapp's activist efforts was an 1892 series of fictionalized sketches portraying the evils of child labor
. "Two Chums: Sketches from Life", which appeared in the San Francisco Call in August, 1892, tells a melodramatic story of two young jute mill
workers who die tragic deaths, one under the wheels of a streetcar, the other in sorrowful suicide for the loss of his friend. Their deaths are hardly noticed.
The series of articles garnered approval from The Woman's column, a publication of the American Woman Suffrage Association: "Miss Adeline Knapp, one of the staff writers on the San Francisco Morning Call, has, through a series of graphic sketches published in that journal, aroused the public against the employment of children in the jute mills and factories of that city. Little creatures of five and six years, as there is no law save that of compulsory education to prevent the hiring of infants, go to their daily toil.
Knapp was also an active environmentalist
. "She is California's naturalist at large", noted the San Francisco Call in 1897.
In the mid-1890s, Knapp wrote many articles on environmental topics for the Call. "The Blessed Hills of San Francisco", a typical example, suggested that walking the hills of San Francisco would give San Francisco's citizens a better perspective on their civic life. "Only from the hills can we note the real majesty and beauty which this city has, hateful though most of its buildings are to the eye, and this beauty can by no means be rightly seen, and appreciated when seen, even from the dummy of a hurrying cable-car." Her book Upland Pastures, published by Elbert Hubbard
's Roycroft
press in 1897, collected a small number of her nature sketches. Another collection of nature essays, In the Christmas Woods, was published in 1899.
A surviving letter to John Muir
in 1899 enlists Muir's help in the fight against the destruction of birds for their plumes (taking up a cause begun a few years earlier by Harriet Hemenway
). "Some of us hope to persuade certain of the women's clubs to take action in the matter", Knapp wrote, requesting Muir to write "a few lines on the subject" for an "article with interviews etc. from some of our bird lovers." She added that "The milliners say that not in 20 years have birds been used for trimming as they are this winter. We need to strike hard and quickly just now, to make an impression."
which borrowed its title from a line in Bret Harte
's notorious poem, "The Heathen Chinee
." Whereas Harte, Scharnhorst claims, was treating anti-Chinese sentiment ironically, "Knapp endorsed the racist reading of 'Plain Language' in a crudely 'yellow peril' tale." During the years Knapp spent with Gilman, anti-Chinese sentiment was strong in California; attempts to regulate the growing population had led to the passage of legislation restricting and deporting Asian immigrants, including the 1892 Geary Act
upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1893.
On the other hand, Knapp clearly admired the Japanese writer Yone Noguchi
, and wrote several articles supporting and publicizing his work.
Knapp's views of Filipinos may be found in the 1902 history textbook she wrote for Filipino students, The Story of the Philippines. Most of Knapp's history is concerned with European colonialism in the islands. Among the inhabitants before the arrival of the Spanish, Knapp briefly mentioned two "wild tribes", the Negritos and Igorot
es, whom she distinguished from the "civilized Filipino people" who were members of the Malay race
. "The Negritos", she wrote "are dying out. They are a small, timid people, with thick lips and flat noses. Their hair is like curly wool. They hunt and fight with bows and arrows, and are very quick and active. Their chief food is fish, and the brown mountain rice which they plant and harvest. Even if taken when children and brought up in a city, they do not grow to like civilized life, but run away and go back to the mountains as soon as they have the chance." Of the Igorots she wrote, "The Igorrotes are the finest and strongest of all the wild tribes in the country. They are very brave, and are good fighters, using in warfare a short, broad knife, which they wield with deadly skill. They never submitted to the Spaniards, and were badly used by that people. The Spaniards always made war upon them, and at one time tried to put an end to all of the tribe in Luzon. They burned their villages and killed all who fell in their power. They could not conquer them, however, and the Igorrotes have always hated the Spanish fiercely." The Malays
she describes as "a sea-going folk, daring sailors, and skillful in managing their boats" who "went boldly to sea in tiny crafts, with only the stars to guide them, taking risks such as no Europeans dared to take."
Over the years, Knapp and Gilman shared enthusiasm and prejudices on a wide variety of topics that undoubtedly reinforced their bond. But ultimately, on one key issue, the two women took opposing sides. Initially, both women supported equal rights and appeared equally passionate working on behalf of women's rights. On the suffrage question, however, Knapp came to espouse a position which questioned and opposed extending to women the right to vote and run for political office.
At a time in American history when women were rallying the cry to extend rights to women, Knapp voiced her opinions through the publication of literature that spoke out against the suffrage movement
. Knapp spoke before the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committee of the New York State Legislature, and her views were publicized in pamphlets published by the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women., which was founded in 1897 and had over 90 members in 1908. Knapp is not listed as a member in the Association's 1908 Annual Report, but was presumably aware of its use of her writings as propaganda. The Association remained active in producing pamphlets and publications explaining their views of women's suffrage, until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
was passed in 1920.
The San Francisco Call once ran a column ostensibly written by Knapp that singled out economic dependence rather than disenfranchisement as the primary cause of women being brought under the control of men, stating, "As long as they depend on men for their bread and butter, they will be under the orders of men, and it will not help them except indirectly to obtain suffrage."
By 1899, Knapp's relative indifference to suffrage had developed into outright opposition. To support her new found stand on the issue, she drafted "An Open Letter to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt," that was printed by the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, questioning whether women actually needed "the ballot", or the right to vote. Knapp argued for the "quiet conservation of the inner things of the home and of society which are permanently in the hands of women." The letter was prompted by a conference in Oakland where Catt spoke on the full suffrage of women. Just one year prior, Catt had published Women and Economics which outlined her case for the domestic liberation of women.
For a few years in the 20th century, Knapp edited the Household Magazine in New York. During this time, she maintained a relationship with Gilman. In subsequent years, when both Knapp and Gilman were living in New York, Gilman was campaigning on behalf of women's suffrage, while Knapp provided opposing testimony before the State legislature. At a February 19, 1908 hearing at Albany on election reform, where "a strong delegation of women from all parts of the state was present in opposition to the woman suffrage proposition", Knapp spoke on the question "Do Working Women Need the Ballot?" Her speech was subsequently published by the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. By this point, Knapp's views had so far departed from those of Gilman that she could argue that women worked only out of necessity rather than preference, which directly contradicted Gilman's understanding of work fulfilling one's potential. Knapp maintained that women have simply failed at the ability to cooperate with the opposite sex, while Gilman celebrated this tendency as one of the noblest inclinations of women. More and more, Gilman's writings would take a hostile stance, labeling the women that opposed suffrage, as traitors.
foothills. I built a house there, a small one, all myself, cut down trees, tramped the woods, wrote a book or two, and did a lot of thinking."
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, author, social activist, environmentalist and educator, who is today remembered largely for her tempestuous lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
relationship with Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
. In her lifetime, Knapp was known as a fixture of the turn-of-the-century San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
literary scene. An outspoken writer who often addressed controversial topics in her columns for the San Francisco Call
San Francisco Call
The San Francisco Call was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called The San Francisco Call & Post, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and the News-Call Bulletin...
, Knapp wrote on a wide range of subjects from livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
to the Annexation of Hawaii. Though often drawn to progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
causes like child labor
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
and conservation
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
, Knapp also tended to espouse reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
views, as evidenced by her anti-Chinese sentiments and criticisms of the women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
movement. At a time when many American women were joining the movement to extend political and voting rights to women, Knapp spoke in state senate hearings in New York expressing doubts about the benefits of suffrage to women, and she allowed her speeches and letters on the topic to be used as propaganda by the anti-suffragism
Anti-suffragism
Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed mainly of women, begun in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in the United States and United Kingdom...
movement. Knapp was also the author of numerous short stories, as well as a novel set in the Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
desert — works reflecting her outdoor enthusiast
Outdoor enthusiast
An outdoor enthusiast is a person who enjoys sports and activities in nature and wilderness areas. Interests associated with outdoor enthusiasts include hiking, fishing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, canoeing, climbing and camping. The term outdoorsman has also been used.U.S. president Teddy...
sensibilities, keen intellect, and interest in Western regionalism
Regionalism
In politics, regionalism is a political ideology that focuses on the interests of a particular region or group of regions, whether traditional or formal...
. These works, though praised in her lifetime, today have few readers among enthusiasts of Western fiction
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...
.
Early years
Adeline Knapp was born on March 14, 1860 in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
to Lyman and Adeline (née Maxwell) Knapp. She was one of nine children born to this family. Knapp was named after her mother, Adeline. In order to distinguish between the two women, Knapp was given the nickname of Dellie, which was used during her childhood. Throughout her adult life, though, she was known simply as "Delle" to her family and friends.
As a young child, when she wasn't spending time with the family's horses, Knapp showed a strong interest in writing. When she was only eight years old, she wrote short poems and stories to entertain her friends. Then when she was 14 years of age, she published a volume of her writing. She also published her own four-page, 12-column newspaper, entitled The Queen City Enterprise. As a monthly newspaper, it flourished for nearly two years and gave her the first taste of life in journalism. This was considered a huge accomplishment for young women at her age. She continued on while publishing the Aspirant in Buffalo and became widely known as a poetess. In 1877, she became a member of the National Amateur Press Association. While she often expressed an interest to one day pursue a career in medicine, it was also thought by her family that she would most likely end up pursuing a career in journalism.
While Knapp's mother had never worked outside of the home, her father, Lyman Knapp, was a highly respected and hard-working man in the Buffalo community. In 1935, Mr. Knapp arrived in Buffalo via Hudson
Hudson, New York
Hudson is a city located along the west border of Columbia County, New York, United States. The city is named after the adjacent Hudson River and ultimately after the explorer Henry Hudson.Hudson is the county seat of Columbia County...
and began working in the wholesale and retail grocery business. After just a few short years, he became a partner in a distilling business. For years, he was a senior member of the brokerage firm
Brokerage firm
A brokerage firm, or simply brokerage or broker in context, is a financial institution that facilitates the buying and selling of financial derivatives between a buyer and a seller...
of Knapp & Gillett. For several years, he was also Chief Engineer with the Volunteer Fire Department. And finally, he was active in founding the Fireman's Benevolent Association, and assisted in organizing the first Water Works Company. The family was considerably financially secure.
Knapp's parents instilled a strong work ethic in the lives of their children. By the age of 17, while continuing to live at the family home with her parents, young Adeline felt compelled to begin making her own way in life. She began seeking employment and soon started working in a large mercantile house. For seven years, she set aside her journalistic pursuits and worked diligently in the mercantile. However, at the age of 24, opportunity in the form of the Buffalo Christian Advocate came knocking and she began working as an associate editor for the local news journal.
Not to be outdone by her father and his numerous pursuits, in addition to working at the Advocate, Knapp also began attending school at the University of Buffalo studying medicine. Her educational career lasted for three years, before she made the decision to leave Buffalo and head for California.
Life in California
In 1887, Knapp left Buffalo for San FranciscoSan Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, taking a position on staff at the San Francisco Call
San Francisco Call
The San Francisco Call was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called The San Francisco Call & Post, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and the News-Call Bulletin...
, where she founded the paper's Woman's Department, which became very popular.
While she continued her work with the Call, within a year after her arrival in California, she purchased the weekly Alameda County
Alameda County, California
Alameda County is a county in the U.S. state of California. It occupies most of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,510,271, making it the 7th most populous county in the state...
Express and began the life of a country editor and publisher. In this capacity, she was essentially the editor, business manager, solicitor, subscription and advertising agent, proofreader, collector and mailing clerk, and delivery staff all rolled into one. After a year and a half, she merged the Express with the Oakland Daily Tribune.
After the Express was consolidated with the Tribune, she began serving the Call as the staff coast and foreign exchange editor. However, when her background and knowledge regarding horses and cattle were discovered, she was transferred to the livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
department. Under the pen name of Miss Russell, she contributed an article every Sunday on the subject of horses and cattle, while she also wrote a story on a variety of subjects under her own name.
Knapp soon established herself as an important member of the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
literary community, particularly its East Bay
East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
The East Bay is a commonly used, informal term for the lands on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States...
contingent, which included Joaquin Miller
Joaquin Miller
Joaquin Miller was the pen name of the colorful American poet Cincinnatus Heine Miller , nicknamed the "Poet of the Sierras".-Early years and family:...
, Edwin Markham
Edwin Markham
Charles Edwin Anson Markham was an American poet. From 1923 to 1931 he was Poet Laureate of Oregon.-Life:Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon and was the youngest of 10 children; his parents divorced shortly after his birth...
, Ina Coolbrith
Ina Coolbrith
Ina Donna Coolbrith was an American poet, writer, librarian, and a prominent figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary community...
, Charles Keeler
Charles Keeler
Charles Augustus Keeler was an American author, poet, naturalist and advocate for the arts, particularly architecture.Keeler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and moved with his family to Berkeley in 1887...
, and Yone Noguchi
Yone Noguchi
Yone Noguchi, or Yonejirō Noguchi, born 野口 米次郎 / Noguchi Yonejirō , was an influential Japanese writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism in both English and Japanese. He was the father of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.-Early life:Noguchi was born in the town of Tsushima, near Nagoya...
.
It was during her time in the Bay Area that her interest in women's issues began to take root. Much of her personal time was spent working with the San Francisco Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, which was a prominent organization uniting women across the United States in advocating for woman's suffrage. They counted a membership between 600 – 700 women in San Francisco. For approximately ten years, she was a strong advocate for women in business, female suffrage, and equality of the sexes. However, her ideals would end up changing around the turn of the 20th century.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
(later Gilman), who had separated from her husband and recently moved to California. The two women soon became close friends, and in September, they began living together at 673 Grove Street. Their friendship was seemingly inseparable. However, time has shown that Knapp is oftentimes remembered today for her tempestuous relationship with Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Gilman wrote about Knapp in her autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, that "the pleasure in the new relation is that I now have some one to love me, and whom I love."
"It is possible, but not certain, that Charlotte and Delle were lovers", writes Gilman's biographer Ann Lane. The most explicit evidence that they were, comes from Stetson's letter to her future husband:
- Adeline Knapp has (I suppose she has) letters of mine most fully owning the really passionate love I had for her. I told you that I loved her that way. You ought to know that there is a possibility of such letters being dragged out some day. Fancy San Francisco papers with a Profound Sensation in Literary Articles! Revelations of a Peculiar Past! Mrs. Stetson's Love Affair with a Woman. Is this Friendship! and so on.
By 1893, the relationship had become acrimonious. The editor of Gilman's diaries gives the following account of the breakup:
- Although Charlotte was "absurdly glad to see" Delle when she returned to Oakland on April 5, their relationship was in jeopardy. On May 3 Charlotte wrote: "Trouble with Delle over the years--and other things." May 11: "All along lately hard times with Delle. Am to [sic] exhausted to attend committee meeting to arrange constitution for State Council of Women. Delle goes without me...Dreadful time with Delle." And the next day: "Home utterly exhausted--scene with Delle all the way up from ferry to house, in the car." By May 14 they had decided to part company: Delle "decides to leave the house. I have so desired since last August--and often asked her to." Delle remained, however, for another two months, and it was July before she packed her belongings.
In her autobiography, Gilman describes her breakup with "Dora" (as she refers to Knapp in the autobiography) in very harsh terms:
- Harder than everything else to me was the utter loss of the friend with whom I had sincerely hoped to live continually. She certainly did love me. At first anyway. And had been most generously kind with money. My return was mainly in service, not only in making a home for her, but in furnishing material for her work. She was a clever writer, and later I learned that she was one of those literary vampires who fasten themselves on one author or another with ardent devotion, and for the time being write like them. The kindest thing I can say of her character is that she had had an abscess at the base of the brain, and perhaps it had affected her moral sense. I do not mean to describe her as 'immoral' in its usual meaning; she was malevolent. She lied so freely as to contradict herself in the course of a conversation, apparently not knowing it. She drank. I saw her drunk at my table. She swore freely at me, as well as others. She lifted her hand to strike me in one of her tempers, but that was a small matter. What did matter was the subtle spreading of slanders about me, which I cannot legally prove to have come from her, but which were of such a nature that only one so close could have asserted such knowledge. Also, I do know of similar mischief-making from her in regard to others. At any rate that solace ended not only in pain but in shame – that I should have been so gullible, so ignorant, as to love her dearly. So, the New Year's inscription for 1893 is a doleful one....
International activities
In the early 1890s, Knapp's coverage of horses and cattle gave way to greater responsibilities as she took over the investigative reporting of international events. In 1893, she traveled to Hawaii to cover the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, where she was "probably the first woman to represent a newspaper in such a crisis."During the crisis, Knapp's correspondence frequently dominated the Calls front pages. On March 9, a long piece signed by Knapp and dated March 1, entitled "Hawaii's Hope", covered all of the front page and a third of page two. It was, by this time, some six weeks since the bloodless anti-royalist coup which had deposed Queen Liliuokalani, and a visitor "would scarcely believe himself to be in the midst of riot and upheaval of the law."
- The palace is closed to all visitors, but owing to the fact that the marines from the Boston are occupying the legislative chamber the Provisional Government finds itself very greatly pressed for room, and has ordered the palace cleaned and put in readiness for Government use. By special permit The Call's correspondent was allowed to pass through the building at a very interesting time. When the Provisional Government decided to convert the palace to its own use it was found that a good deal of personal property belonging to the outgoing regime was still in the building. These articles were being taken away, to be ultimately divided between the Queen Dowager KapiolaniQueen KapiolaniQueen Kapiolani formally Esther Kapiolani or Esther Kapiolani Napelakapuokakae, was married to King David Kalākaua and reigned as Queen Consort of the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Life:...
, Princess Kaiualani and the ex-Queen. Loaded upon one-horse trucks, like the household goods of any evicted Tar Flat family, the relics of departing royalty presented a touching spectacle.
While Knapp evidently felt some sorrow for the deposed queen and princess, she noted that the Queen Dowager Kapiolani
Kapiolani
Queen Kapiolani formally Esther Kapiolani or Esther Kapiolani Napelakapuokakae, was married to King David Kalākaua and reigned as Queen Consort of the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Life:...
was "avowedly jubilant over the present state of affairs." But she was under no illusions that the native Hawaiians supported annexation:
- I do not think it can be said, with any degree of truthfulness, that the natives really want annexation. The majority of them would doubtless favor an American protectorate, but it is not in reason to suppose that they like to see their native kingdom swallowed up in a greater power. There are plenty, even among those of American parentage, children of the early missionaries, who feel much the same way, and are at a loss to say what they do want. The natives, though, want, in a word, better times, a condition of things that will bring more money into the country. Capital, ever timid, has been driven from the islands almost altogether, by the uncertain tenure of the Government, and the natives, perhaps more than any other class, have felt the pinch. They want better times and they do not care who brings them. There is probably not one in the Kingdom who is prepared to waste any sentimental regret over the downfall of the house of Kalakaua. To their way of thinking monarchy vanished when the tabu was raised.
The problems of the Hawaiian monarchy were only one reason Knapp thought resistance movements unlikely to succeed. "The natives, even should they desire to resist, are too uncertain themselves as to what they want to unite in any concerted action. They have no money, no arms, no leaders, and really no cause save their ancient traditions, which have so far lapsed, since the overthrow of the tabu, as to make no very powerful appeal to their national pride." Moreover, "they themselves are dying out at the rate of nearly 1000 a year, and but a handful are left of the hundreds of thousands that once swarmed in the islands." These arguments helped Knapp to justify what she saw as the inevitable American appropriation of the islands:
- Some foreign power must inevitably assume control of the country, and there is no such power whose interests are so directly and largely at stake as are those of the United States. To enlarge upon this point would be to indulge in mere truisms; the conclusion is irresistible. We must annex the islands or see them pass into the control of a foreign power and become a constant menace on our frontier.
For those who might dispute the significance of these "little islands in the midst of the Pacific", Knapp suggested that:
- A glance at the map will show at once the relation of the principal ports and naval stations of the Pacific Ocean to the islands, and will give, as no words can do, an idea of the strategic importance of a coaling and naval station here in tbe event of war between the United states and any foreign power, It needs only for Great Britain to possess these islands for her to have the United States hemmed in on every side.
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
writing accounts of her journey to Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
and Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
.
Following the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, Knapp moved from San Francisco, California to the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. She was one of a thousand volunteer teachers known as the Thomasites
Thomasites
The Thomasites is a group of about five hundred pioneer American teachers sent by the U.S. government to the Philippines in August 1901.-Foundation, purpose and etymology:...
who went to the Philippines aboard the ship Thomas to teach in the new Filipino schools.
In 1902, Knapp authored a history book about the Philippines. It traced Philippine history from Magellan's discovery, until the arrival of the Americans. Her book was the first history of the Philippines written for school children. In presenting her book, she shared that she wrote it for the children, with the intention to bring a history of the land within their reach for the first time.
Social reform activism
Both in and outside her journalistic work, Knapp was drawn to numerous social causes and reform movementReform movement
A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes...
s.
One of Knapp's activist efforts was an 1892 series of fictionalized sketches portraying the evils of child labor
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
. "Two Chums: Sketches from Life", which appeared in the San Francisco Call in August, 1892, tells a melodramatic story of two young jute mill
Jute mill
Originally, a jute mill was a factory for processing jute. The first jute mill was established in Dundee, Scotland. The world's largest jute mill was the Adamjee Jute Mills at Narayanganj in Bangladesh. It closed all operations during 2002....
workers who die tragic deaths, one under the wheels of a streetcar, the other in sorrowful suicide for the loss of his friend. Their deaths are hardly noticed.
The series of articles garnered approval from The Woman's column, a publication of the American Woman Suffrage Association: "Miss Adeline Knapp, one of the staff writers on the San Francisco Morning Call, has, through a series of graphic sketches published in that journal, aroused the public against the employment of children in the jute mills and factories of that city. Little creatures of five and six years, as there is no law save that of compulsory education to prevent the hiring of infants, go to their daily toil.
Environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
. "She is California's naturalist at large", noted the San Francisco Call in 1897.
In the mid-1890s, Knapp wrote many articles on environmental topics for the Call. "The Blessed Hills of San Francisco", a typical example, suggested that walking the hills of San Francisco would give San Francisco's citizens a better perspective on their civic life. "Only from the hills can we note the real majesty and beauty which this city has, hateful though most of its buildings are to the eye, and this beauty can by no means be rightly seen, and appreciated when seen, even from the dummy of a hurrying cable-car." Her book Upland Pastures, published by Elbert Hubbard
Elbert Hubbard
Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin soap company. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an...
's Roycroft
Roycroft
Roycroft was a reformist community of craft workers and artists which formed part of the Arts and Crafts movement in the USA. Elbert Hubbard founded the community in 1895 in the village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, near Buffalo. Participants were known as Roycrofters...
press in 1897, collected a small number of her nature sketches. Another collection of nature essays, In the Christmas Woods, was published in 1899.
A surviving letter to John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
in 1899 enlists Muir's help in the fight against the destruction of birds for their plumes (taking up a cause begun a few years earlier by Harriet Hemenway
Harriet Hemenway
Harriet Hemenway was a Boston socialite who founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society.During the Gilded Age, it became fashionable for women to wear plumes in their hats. These plumes came from woodpeckers, bluebirds, owls, herons and warblers, thousands of which were killed each year...
). "Some of us hope to persuade certain of the women's clubs to take action in the matter", Knapp wrote, requesting Muir to write "a few lines on the subject" for an "article with interviews etc. from some of our bird lovers." She added that "The milliners say that not in 20 years have birds been used for trimming as they are this winter. We need to strike hard and quickly just now, to make an impression."
Views on race and immigration
In recent years, Knapp's views on race and immigration have been questioned. According to Gilman's biographer Cynthia Davis, "Delle vocally opposed Asian immigration and may have helped cultivate Charlotte's xenophobia." As evidence, Davis cites a 1996 article in which Gary Scharnhorst critqued the anti-Chinese perspective of Knapp's 1895 story, "The Ways That Are Dark,"which borrowed its title from a line in Bret Harte
Bret Harte
Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...
's notorious poem, "The Heathen Chinee
The Heathen Chinee
The Heathen Chinee, originally published as Plain Language from Truthful James, is a narrative poem by American writer Bret Harte. It was published for the first time in September 1870 in Overland Monthly...
." Whereas Harte, Scharnhorst claims, was treating anti-Chinese sentiment ironically, "Knapp endorsed the racist reading of 'Plain Language' in a crudely 'yellow peril' tale." During the years Knapp spent with Gilman, anti-Chinese sentiment was strong in California; attempts to regulate the growing population had led to the passage of legislation restricting and deporting Asian immigrants, including the 1892 Geary Act
Geary Act
The Geary Act was a United States law passed in 1892 written by California Congressman Thomas J. Geary. It extended the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by adding onerous new requirements....
upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1893.
On the other hand, Knapp clearly admired the Japanese writer Yone Noguchi
Yone Noguchi
Yone Noguchi, or Yonejirō Noguchi, born 野口 米次郎 / Noguchi Yonejirō , was an influential Japanese writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism in both English and Japanese. He was the father of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.-Early life:Noguchi was born in the town of Tsushima, near Nagoya...
, and wrote several articles supporting and publicizing his work.
Knapp's views of Filipinos may be found in the 1902 history textbook she wrote for Filipino students, The Story of the Philippines. Most of Knapp's history is concerned with European colonialism in the islands. Among the inhabitants before the arrival of the Spanish, Knapp briefly mentioned two "wild tribes", the Negritos and Igorot
Igorot
Cordillerans are the people of the Cordillera region, in the Philippines island of Luzon. The word, Igorot is a misnomer term invented by the Spaniards in mockery against the Nortnern Luzon tribes. The word ‘Igorot’ also as coined and applied by the Spaniards means a savage, head-hunting and...
es, whom she distinguished from the "civilized Filipino people" who were members of the Malay race
Malay race
The concept of a Malay race was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , and classified as the brown race. Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races...
. "The Negritos", she wrote "are dying out. They are a small, timid people, with thick lips and flat noses. Their hair is like curly wool. They hunt and fight with bows and arrows, and are very quick and active. Their chief food is fish, and the brown mountain rice which they plant and harvest. Even if taken when children and brought up in a city, they do not grow to like civilized life, but run away and go back to the mountains as soon as they have the chance." Of the Igorots she wrote, "The Igorrotes are the finest and strongest of all the wild tribes in the country. They are very brave, and are good fighters, using in warfare a short, broad knife, which they wield with deadly skill. They never submitted to the Spaniards, and were badly used by that people. The Spaniards always made war upon them, and at one time tried to put an end to all of the tribe in Luzon. They burned their villages and killed all who fell in their power. They could not conquer them, however, and the Igorrotes have always hated the Spanish fiercely." The Malays
Malay race
The concept of a Malay race was proposed by the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach , and classified as the brown race. Since Blumenbach, many anthropologists have rejected his theory of five races, citing the enormous complexity of classifying races...
she describes as "a sea-going folk, daring sailors, and skillful in managing their boats" who "went boldly to sea in tiny crafts, with only the stars to guide them, taking risks such as no Europeans dared to take."
Opposition to woman suffrage
At a time in American history when women were rallying the cry to extend rights to women, Knapp voiced her opinions through the publication of literature that spoke out against the suffrage movement
Anti-suffragism
Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed mainly of women, begun in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in the United States and United Kingdom...
. Knapp spoke before the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committee of the New York State Legislature, and her views were publicized in pamphlets published by the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women., which was founded in 1897 and had over 90 members in 1908. Knapp is not listed as a member in the Association's 1908 Annual Report, but was presumably aware of its use of her writings as propaganda. The Association remained active in producing pamphlets and publications explaining their views of women's suffrage, until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
was passed in 1920.
The San Francisco Call once ran a column ostensibly written by Knapp that singled out economic dependence rather than disenfranchisement as the primary cause of women being brought under the control of men, stating, "As long as they depend on men for their bread and butter, they will be under the orders of men, and it will not help them except indirectly to obtain suffrage."
For a few years in the 20th century, Knapp edited the Household Magazine in New York. During this time, she maintained a relationship with Gilman. In subsequent years, when both Knapp and Gilman were living in New York, Gilman was campaigning on behalf of women's suffrage, while Knapp provided opposing testimony before the State legislature. At a February 19, 1908 hearing at Albany on election reform, where "a strong delegation of women from all parts of the state was present in opposition to the woman suffrage proposition", Knapp spoke on the question "Do Working Women Need the Ballot?" Her speech was subsequently published by the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. By this point, Knapp's views had so far departed from those of Gilman that she could argue that women worked only out of necessity rather than preference, which directly contradicted Gilman's understanding of work fulfilling one's potential. Knapp maintained that women have simply failed at the ability to cooperate with the opposite sex, while Gilman celebrated this tendency as one of the noblest inclinations of women. More and more, Gilman's writings would take a hostile stance, labeling the women that opposed suffrage, as traitors.
Final days
In 1909, Knapp died in California after a long illness. Her New York Times obituary printed June 26, 1909, quoted a recent letter summing up her career: "They said I made a hit, (in Hawaii,) but the experience convinced me that newspaper work does not offer a real career for a woman--the sacrifices are too great." For this reason, Knapp wrote, "I went away from cities altogether and lived for two or three years alone in a canyon in the Contra CostaContra Costa
Contra Costa can refer to:*Contra Costa County, California* Contra Costa...
foothills. I built a house there, a small one, all myself, cut down trees, tramped the woods, wrote a book or two, and did a lot of thinking."
Books
- Knapp, Delle E. The romance of the Castle Rock and other poems, Buffalo, New York. Queens City Enterprise Print, 1876.
- Knapp, Adeline. One Thousand Dollars a Day. Studies in practical economics. Boston, The Arena Publishing Company. 1894. ISBN 978-1-120-34884-5.
- Knapp, Adeline. The Story of the Philippines. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company. 1902. ISBN 978-1-4374-3559-7
- Knapp, Adeline. This Then is Upland Pastures: Being Some Outdoor Essays Dealing with the Beautiful Things That the Spring and Summer Bring. East Aurora, New York. Roycroft Printing Shop, 1897. ISBN 978-0-548-39858-6.
- Knapp, Adeline. The Well in the Desert. New York: The Century Company. 1908. ISBN 978-1-4589-3981-4.
- Ashley, Mike (editor) and Adeline Knapp, E. Nesbit, and Mary Shelley. The Dreaming Sex: Tales of Scientific Wonder and Dread by Victorian Women. Peter Owen Ltd. 2010. ISBN 978-0-7206-1354-4.
Pamphlets
- Knapp, Adeline. "An Open Letter to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt" New York: New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. 1899. (8 pages)
- Knapp, Adeline. "Do working women need the ballot? An address to the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committee of the New York Legislature." New York: New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. 1908. (8 pages)
- Knapp, Adeline. "In the Christmas woods; being the introductory essay of a series on observations of nature through the year." San Francisco, California. Stanley-Taylor Company. 1899. (16 pages)