1894 ELIZA BURT GAMBLE. Woman Proved Superior to Man by Darwinian Evolution. Important Feminist Work.

Not seen at auction since 1977 and no copies on the market at the time of cataloguing, the present is a superbly preserved first edition of Eliza Burt Gamble's influential feminist manifesto. 

Gamble, Eliza Burt. The Evolution of Woman. An Inquiry into the Dogma of Her Inferiority to Man. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons. The Knickerbocker Press. 1894. First Edition. 356pp.

In 1894, Eliza Burt Gamble published The Evolution of Woman, as a feminist critique of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Thirty-five years after the release of The Origin of Species, the influence of Darwin’s work upon both academia and the public was significant. Though the distinction between Darwinian thought and other developmental hypotheses was rarely made, evolutionary theories provided late nineteenth century Victorians with a narrative that explained the order of the biological world. The theories were also utilized to create a narrative of the sociological world – specifically, to justify the order of gender relations that held men as superior to women.

Although Gamble respected Darwin’s “great breadth of mental vision, and the important work which he accomplished in the direction of original inquiry” she was acutely aware that his scientific reasoning was not a product of a purely objective scientific method. Darwin’s scientific conclusions, according to Gamble, were inextricably connected to the societal norms of the Victorian era in which he lived. Gamble argued that Darwin, in an attempt to prove the ‘natural’ superiority of men, “ignored certain facts which he himself adduced” that pointed to the true superiority of women. The Evolution of Woman, both a critique on Darwinian evolution and a scientific justification for the promotion of women within society, was Eliza Burt Gamble’s essential work. It was the culminating expression of her strong feminist stance that she had held up until its publication date in 1894 and continued to influence both her writing and work in social reform throughout her life.

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As a feminist and socialist, Gamble firmly believed in human rights and individual liberties; naturally, she strongly supported women’s suffrage. She became involved in the movement in the late 1860s and helped to organize the first women’s suffrage conference in Michigan in 1876. While living in Minnesota in the 1880’s, she both wrote in advocacy of the suffrage movement and spoke at events. At the annual suffrage meeting in Minneapolis in 1884, for example, she delivered a “very able paper on ‘Woman and the Church’.” Gamble was convinced that women’s enfranchisement by means of the vote was of the utmost importance, but ultimately believed that suffrage “addressed only the surface issues of sexual equality.”

In the present work, Gamble’s argument, to a large extent, revolved around Darwin’s ideologies set forth in his 1871 publication on human evolution and sexual selection, The Descent of Man. In the work, Darwin asserted that the superiority of the male sex became apparent at the age of reproduction when secondary sexual characteristics (i.e. extravagant plumage, tusks, horns) became visible. Though the preponderance of secondary sexual characteristics could sometimes be injurious to the life of the male (for example, over-size horns making escape from a predator impossible), they enabled his vigorous and eager pursuit of the female and allowed him to leave a more numerous progeny. Gamble countered that it was not the male’s secondary sexual characteristics, but rather the female’s exercise of discerning taste and choice in sexual selection that was superior. To Gamble, this was evidence of higher intelligence and mental capacity in females. Though Darwin acknowledged the female’s capacity for choice, he believed this trait in a woman to be consistent with passivity and coyness. ‘Choice’ presented a need to be courted before accepting a mate – this clearly echoed the pattern of Victorian social ritual.

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On top of her critique on Darwinian evolution, Gamble included an extensive anthropological history of gender roles in her work. Throughout the second two portions of her book, “Prehistoric Society” and “Early Historic Society”, she detailed the transition of human culture from a matriarchal to patriarchal society. In the earliest conditions of human life, Gamble argued, women exerted choice and control over sexuality, and therefore also controlled the means of kinship within society. Gamble maintained that humans shifted to a system of patriarchy when women were forced into marriage as a result of wife-capture. Women essentially became a commodity to be exchanged between men, and thus women gradually lost both economic and social power within society. In the early historic societies of Greece and Rome, women’s position declined further as generations of female subjugation compounded. Women’s accomplishments in ancient times were marginalized by the “efforts put forth by scholastics for two thousand years to belittle or annul (their) importance.”

As illustrated by her multifaceted argument, Gamble’s The Evolution of Women was obviously complex and constructed in a decisively interdisciplinary manner. At the heart of the work, the feminist ideology that inspired Gamble was evident. Ultimately, Darwin’s work suggested that woman’s inferiority within society was ‘natural’; Gamble argued that woman’s inferiority was in fact ‘unnatural’ -the result of a societal focus on ownership of property and commoditization of women, reinforced by the scientific conclusions of the privileged (males) within that society.

Very good condition. Small spot below "Woman" on front board, a 2mm black spot on rear board. A simple period ownership stamp on pastedown, W. S. Pickard. Else, crisp and clean as the day it was produced. A lovely example.