Mary Ritter Beard - European Influences

European Influences

While in England Beard observed the plight of British industrial society, developed friendships with a wide variety of radicals and progressive leaders amongst the cooperative Socialists and the labor movement as well as the militant suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin and other influential European intellectuals. It was here that Beard began to read and write history and was deeply influenced by what she learned of the struggles of the working class, the urgency and passion of the women’s suffrage movement and the possibilities for social reform.