What do you think?
Rate this book
Queen Silver : The Godless Girl (Women's Studies
When she was just eight-years-old, a little girl with the odd name of Queen Silver stunned citizens and scholars alike in pre-1920s Los Angeles by hosting six remarkable public lectures on Darwin and Einstein, sponsored by the London Society of Science. A child prodigy and the daughter of famed socialist activist Grace Vern Silver, founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Queen Silver was the subject of Cecil B. De Mille's film The Godless Girl. She matured to become an international feminist, atheist, and socialist, living a remarkable and inspiring life, of which few feminists today are aware.
Queen The Godless Girl is a fiery and profound biography of one of America's most amazing feminist thinkers, a woman who remained an active advocate of intellectual independence to the moment of her death in 1998 at the age of 86. Prolific feminist writer Wendy McElroy sympathetically chronicles the life of Queen Silver from personal interviews with her friends, published reports, letters, and a vast library of the family's personal papers. What emerges is a life like none other. A well-known thinker by the time she was 11-years-old, giving speeches titled "Pioneers of Freethought," "The Rights of Children," and "Science and the Workers," Queen challenged three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to a debate on evolution (he declined); organized an atheist group at her high school; and left home at 15 to marry a doctor three-times her age, which later became the source of a highly publicized divorce.
As a teenager, Queen once served as a defense lawyer for her mother and won. She founded the scholarly and well-reviewed Queen Silver Magazine, and overcame personal tragedy and political persecution during World War I's red scare. Queen worked as an extra in movies directed by D.W. Griffith, attended violent and controversial meetings of the IWW, and went into hiding at the advent of McCarthyism. In her later years, Queen received many freethought awards, remained active in the American Civil Liberties Union, and campaigned hard for public libraries.
McElroy tells a complete story by profiling Queen's mother, lecturer and feminist writer Grace Vern Silver, whose struggles for justice in the IWW found her running for Congress, and whose personal education motivated her to inspire the genius in her daughter.
Queen The Godless Girl is a fiery and profound biography of one of America's most amazing feminist thinkers, a woman who remained an active advocate of intellectual independence to the moment of her death in 1998 at the age of 86. Prolific feminist writer Wendy McElroy sympathetically chronicles the life of Queen Silver from personal interviews with her friends, published reports, letters, and a vast library of the family's personal papers. What emerges is a life like none other. A well-known thinker by the time she was 11-years-old, giving speeches titled "Pioneers of Freethought," "The Rights of Children," and "Science and the Workers," Queen challenged three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to a debate on evolution (he declined); organized an atheist group at her high school; and left home at 15 to marry a doctor three-times her age, which later became the source of a highly publicized divorce.
As a teenager, Queen once served as a defense lawyer for her mother and won. She founded the scholarly and well-reviewed Queen Silver Magazine, and overcame personal tragedy and political persecution during World War I's red scare. Queen worked as an extra in movies directed by D.W. Griffith, attended violent and controversial meetings of the IWW, and went into hiding at the advent of McCarthyism. In her later years, Queen received many freethought awards, remained active in the American Civil Liberties Union, and campaigned hard for public libraries.
McElroy tells a complete story by profiling Queen's mother, lecturer and feminist writer Grace Vern Silver, whose struggles for justice in the IWW found her running for Congress, and whose personal education motivated her to inspire the genius in her daughter.
291 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Wendy McElroy
68 books46 followersWendy McElroy is a Canadian individualist feminist and anarcho-capitalist.
Among feminists, she identifies herself as being sex-positive: defending the availability of pornography and condemning anti-pornography feminism campaigns. She has also voiced criticism of sexual harassment policies, particularly the zero-tolerance policies common to grade schools, which she considers to be "far too broad and vague" and lacking the sound research necessary to guide responsible policy-making decisions.
In explaining her position in regard to capitalism, she says she has a "marked personal preference for capitalism as the most productive, fair and sensible economic system on the face of the earth," but also recognizes that the free market permits other kinds of systems as well. She says what she wants for society is "not necessarily a capitalistic arrangement but a free market system in which everyone can make the peaceful choices they wish with their own bodies and labor." Therefore, she does not call herself a capitalist but someone for a "free market."
(This description is taken from Wikipedia.)
Among feminists, she identifies herself as being sex-positive: defending the availability of pornography and condemning anti-pornography feminism campaigns. She has also voiced criticism of sexual harassment policies, particularly the zero-tolerance policies common to grade schools, which she considers to be "far too broad and vague" and lacking the sound research necessary to guide responsible policy-making decisions.
In explaining her position in regard to capitalism, she says she has a "marked personal preference for capitalism as the most productive, fair and sensible economic system on the face of the earth," but also recognizes that the free market permits other kinds of systems as well. She says what she wants for society is "not necessarily a capitalistic arrangement but a free market system in which everyone can make the peaceful choices they wish with their own bodies and labor." Therefore, she does not call herself a capitalist but someone for a "free market."
(This description is taken from Wikipedia.)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 22, 2009
Queen Silver was a fascinating character, a phenomenon really, of those wild and wacky 1920s. She was a little girl, a prodigy, who at age 10 challenged the anti-evolutionist William Jennings Bryan to a debate. He declined, because Silver was sort of a little genius and could not be out-argued. She wrote a widely read paper explaining Einstein's Theory of Relativity before Einstein had even published it. And, it seems, she more or less got it right. She was brought up by a radically progressive mother, Grace, a firebrand and intellect in her own right. Silver was known as "The Godless Girl," and despite her atheism was hailed and admired even by religionists for her quick wit, logical thinking, ability to speak on her feet and to deliver inspiring soapbox lectures.
She was a celebrity in a time when the anti-religion Freethought movement actually had those, and in a sense was almost like the Oprah of her day, in that she had her own magazine devoted to her doings and writings. I've just started this, and, as one might expect, Grace and Queen were sired of strict conservative religious roots, and endured horrendous poverty and abuse, and often bad luck and threats. One of Queen's eyes was severely damaged by an errant cigarette that landed on her as she was being walked in a stroller. The KKK and other intolerant types threatened the mom and daughter for their socialist and godless views. One can debate the merits and demerits of the way Grace raised Queen, trotting her around like a stage mother or an organ-grinder with a performing monkey, and keeping her away from childish things. Queen herself railed against the waste of young minds during the formative years when the human brain is most capable of absorbing vast amounts of information.
Little is known about the man who sired Queen with Grace, the latter being a freelover.
As of this writing, I'm only on page 65, but it's a fairly quick read despite numerous insertions of letters and newspaper clippings set in small type. I commend the writer, an atheist who actually knew Queen well in her old age (she died in her 90s just a few years ago), for getting this story of a neglected part of American history into print, though the writing itself is a tad dry and lacking flair. But I read on because this subject fascinates me.
The book will be of interest equally to aficionados of women's studies as well as of progressive freethought and ideas in the early 20th century.
McElroy claims that Silver was used as model for the title character of Cecil B. DeMille's silent film, "The Godless Girl." However, if so, it appears to be a very loose interpretation. From what I glean from the plot description in Robert Birchard's book, "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood," the film's plot seems to bear no relation to the story of Queen Silver.
UPDATE: (on page 193)
The first half of the book is biography, and at least equal parts of it are devoted to the story of Queen's mother, Grace. Like many prodigies, Queen eventually melded into quiet obscurity and civil servitude, nobody having any idea of her illustrious past, which was just fine given she had to live through the McCarthy era. But in her last years she again reemerged to play a role in freethought and leftish causes.
The second half of the book contains choice essays and speeches written by Queen during her young hellion heyday. The first is a rip-roaring, impeccably argued screed against the religionist hero William Jennings Bryan very shortly before the Scopes Monkey Trial. It is chocked with gem after gem and should be required reading for all dunderheads who still adhere to the nonsense of pushing creationism in public schools.
I pull just one tiny passage out for your amusement:
"William Jennings Bryan is a fair example of the survival of a primitive mind in a modern body. He travels in a Pullman car, not on donkey back; but he goes back to the donkey-back age of the world for his science and his religion. He would not hire Moses to fix his typewriter, but he goes to Moses for his knowledge of Biology, Geology, and Astronomy."
Topping, wot?
UPDATE: (page 230)
Read several more essays and they are blistering, hilarious and full of touche flourishes. So many quotable bits I couldn't share them all here. So I up the book's rating accordingly.
I would have to give the book four or five stars for the essays, three stars for the biography (the writing and storytelling lack flair, but the subject matter carries it), and five stars perhaps for getting a neglected subject out there.
She was a celebrity in a time when the anti-religion Freethought movement actually had those, and in a sense was almost like the Oprah of her day, in that she had her own magazine devoted to her doings and writings. I've just started this, and, as one might expect, Grace and Queen were sired of strict conservative religious roots, and endured horrendous poverty and abuse, and often bad luck and threats. One of Queen's eyes was severely damaged by an errant cigarette that landed on her as she was being walked in a stroller. The KKK and other intolerant types threatened the mom and daughter for their socialist and godless views. One can debate the merits and demerits of the way Grace raised Queen, trotting her around like a stage mother or an organ-grinder with a performing monkey, and keeping her away from childish things. Queen herself railed against the waste of young minds during the formative years when the human brain is most capable of absorbing vast amounts of information.
Little is known about the man who sired Queen with Grace, the latter being a freelover.
As of this writing, I'm only on page 65, but it's a fairly quick read despite numerous insertions of letters and newspaper clippings set in small type. I commend the writer, an atheist who actually knew Queen well in her old age (she died in her 90s just a few years ago), for getting this story of a neglected part of American history into print, though the writing itself is a tad dry and lacking flair. But I read on because this subject fascinates me.
The book will be of interest equally to aficionados of women's studies as well as of progressive freethought and ideas in the early 20th century.
McElroy claims that Silver was used as model for the title character of Cecil B. DeMille's silent film, "The Godless Girl." However, if so, it appears to be a very loose interpretation. From what I glean from the plot description in Robert Birchard's book, "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood," the film's plot seems to bear no relation to the story of Queen Silver.
UPDATE: (on page 193)
The first half of the book is biography, and at least equal parts of it are devoted to the story of Queen's mother, Grace. Like many prodigies, Queen eventually melded into quiet obscurity and civil servitude, nobody having any idea of her illustrious past, which was just fine given she had to live through the McCarthy era. But in her last years she again reemerged to play a role in freethought and leftish causes.
The second half of the book contains choice essays and speeches written by Queen during her young hellion heyday. The first is a rip-roaring, impeccably argued screed against the religionist hero William Jennings Bryan very shortly before the Scopes Monkey Trial. It is chocked with gem after gem and should be required reading for all dunderheads who still adhere to the nonsense of pushing creationism in public schools.
I pull just one tiny passage out for your amusement:
"William Jennings Bryan is a fair example of the survival of a primitive mind in a modern body. He travels in a Pullman car, not on donkey back; but he goes back to the donkey-back age of the world for his science and his religion. He would not hire Moses to fix his typewriter, but he goes to Moses for his knowledge of Biology, Geology, and Astronomy."
Topping, wot?
UPDATE: (page 230)
Read several more essays and they are blistering, hilarious and full of touche flourishes. So many quotable bits I couldn't share them all here. So I up the book's rating accordingly.
I would have to give the book four or five stars for the essays, three stars for the biography (the writing and storytelling lack flair, but the subject matter carries it), and five stars perhaps for getting a neglected subject out there.
October 15, 2016
The second half the book was selected writings so I pretty much had finished the biography! Really enjoyed it and the essays at the end are mind boggling being written someone so young, what incredible comprehension and language.
February 12, 2011
One of those books that is not necessarily well written, but what a wonderful person to hear their story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews