Hélène Brion and the missing manuscripts: La Lutte féministe,1918

Abstract

Hélène Brion’s journal, La Lutte féministe, ‘organe unique et rigoureusement indépendant du féminisme intégral’ is generally thought to have first appeared in February 1919. However, the discovery of four elegantly handwritten manuscript issues of the same journal in the Sylvia Beach archive at Princeton University Library reveals that Brion had launched an earlier version of La Lutte féministe for limited distribution among an inner-circle of pacifist feminist schoolteachers and fellow political travellers barely a week before the Armistice in November 1918. These manuscript issues which are, to the best of my knowledge, single one-off copies, show Brion and her fellow activists urgently mobilizing around issues of suffrage and peace as the war ended. The manuscripts reveal what motivated Brion’s initial Lutte féministe project and the progressive shifts in theme, content and presentation of the journals provide a fascinating insight into the popularizing strategies Brion rehearsed ahead of a print version aimed at a wider readership. Previously unpublished transcripts of correspondence and personal testimonies offer illuminating insights into the acrimonious relationship between Brion and the mainstream reformist feminist movement and enable a unique and intimate personal and political profiling of Brion and her entourage. This article not only brings to light these fascinating documents but also gives valuable insight into the evolving modalities of feminist publishing at the end of the First World War. It explains just how unemployed schoolteacher Brion managed to produce, circulate and popularize the journal with virtually no financial support. In addition, the article’s examination of editorial choices she made ahead of the print version are revelatory of the proselytizing strategies used by feminists to reach women of the popular classes at a time of great optimism for lasting political and social change.