| Gertrude Bussey | |
| Birth Name: | Gertrude Carman Bussey |
| Birth Date: | January 13, 1888 |
| Nationality: | American |
| Alma Mater: | Barnard College, Wellesley College, Columbia University, Oxford University, Northwestern University |
| Occupation: | Philosopher, Educator |
| Known For: | Activism for women's rights, civil liberties, and peace |
Gertrude Carman Bussey (January 13, 1888 – March 12, 1961) was an American academic philosopher and activist for women's rights, civil liberties, and peace.[1] [2]
Bussey first attended Barnard College before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1908 from Wellesley College. After graduate study at Columbia University in 1908-1909 and teaching at a private school in Bronxville she went on to do further study at Oxford University during 1912-14. She then went to Northwestern University and became, in 1915, its first student to receive a PhD in philosophy.[3] That same year, she was appointed as an instructor of philosophy at Goucher College. She was promoted to full professor in 1921, and became chair of the philosophy department in 1924, a position she held until her retirement in 1953. In 1954, she received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (LHD) from the college.
In 1912, the Open Court Publishing Company produced a French/English version of Man a Machine by Julien Offray de La Mettrie that was founded on Bussey's translation (revised by Mary Whiton Calkins with the help of M. Carret and George Santayana) and included historical and philosophical notes that were condensed and adapted from a thesis on La Mettrie presented by Bussey to Wellesley College.[4] [5] It was reprinted in 1927 and 1943.[6] This was the only available English translation of La Mettrie made since 1750[7] and no newer English translation was made available until 1994.[8] Her PHd dissertation, "Typical Recent Conceptions of Freedom", of which several chapters were previously published in The Philosophical Review and The Monist, was published in 1917[9] and was republished in 1990.[10] In the same she discusses various then contemporary naturalistic conceptions of freedom and determinism related to the issue of free will including those of Ernst Haeckel, William James, Henri Bergson and Bernard Bosanquet. Bussey's later articles were concerned with religion.
Bussey "demonstrated throughout her life a concern for economic and social justice, peace, and above all, freedom"[11] and was involved with numerous progressive social and political causes. She was, along with Elisabeth Gilman, a co-founder and leader of the Maryland Civil Liberties Committee, which was formed in 1921 in the wake of arrests and deportations of immigrant workers and was later to become a branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.[12] She was also involved with the Baltimore Open Forum, the Consumers' League of Maryland, the Baltimore YMCA, and the Church League for Industrial Democracy.
Bussey was however "most completely identified with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom" (WILPF). She was an original member of WILPF's Baltimore branch and was to serve as its Chairperson. On behalf of WILPF she traveled the Midwest giving lectures about the link between education and war and peace.[2]
At a 1935 lecture in Hagerstown, Maryland, Bussey declared "We must strive to solve the economic and political problems which drive modern countries into war," and that "the world is now engaged in a race between education and death," clarifying, as Mitchell K. Hall put it, "that the solution to war was education and that permanent peace could only be achieved when people had the proper knowledge to see alternatives to war". On September 30, 1936, she was a member of a WILPF delegation that discussed peace issues with President Roosevelt at the White House.[13] Bussey served as National President of WILPF from May 1939 but, uncertain she could maintain the pacifist stance she felt the position required she resigned the leadership in May 1941. She did remain active within WILPF and went on to serve as Honorary National President from 1960 to 1961.
Bussey died before she could complete her projected 50-year history on the WILPF. It was, however, completed by Margaret Tims and published posthumously as
In a review prompted by this reissue Francis Early described it as "an important, indeed a crucial book, for anyone interested in the history of the women's peace movement". Early claimed that its authors represented "the best of the tradition of activist-scholars" and had produced a study that "is carefully researched, well written, and imbued with insights gained from first-hand knowledge of events and people".[14]
Following Bussey's death on March 13, 1961, aged 73, which was marked by an obituary in The New York Times,[15] a lectureship was founded in her honor at Goucher College "by the American Civil Liberties Union, the class of 1929 of Goucher, of which she was an honorary member, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom".
The 'WiPhi' (Women In Philosophy) group at Northwestern University also host an annual public lecture by a distinguished female philosopher known as the 'Gertrude Bussey Lecture'.