Louisa Maria Hubbard (8 March 1836 – 5 November 1906) was an English feminist social reformer and writer.
Born into a wealthy merchant family in Russia, she moved to England as a young girl and remained there for most of her life.
She began her activism in the Anglican deaconess movement in the 1860s, organizing members and raising awareness of its goals.
She capitalized on increased awareness of the demand for teachers, following the passage of the Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict.
She was concerned that many women were unable to find work as teachers due to poor educational practices.
Hubbard spent much of her life promoting employment opportunities -- not only teaching -- for women who had to work to support themselves.
She particularly focused on unmarried women and impoverished gentlewomen and the disdain in which society held the idea of their employment.
[1] Her father was a merchant whose family had established business interests in Arkhangelsk Saint Petersburg in the mid 18th century.
[4] The movement, which had been present in the Anglican church since 1850, focused on providing community life for women and training them work with the poor as nurses or teachers.
[7] Hubbard first became interested in the idea of training teachers after the editor of John Bull, who had been impressed by her writings about the deaconess movement, asked her to contribute a letter on the subject.
[15] She was initially worried about the difficulties that middle-class women would face working in schools with members of lower social classes, but ultimately decided that such sacrifices would be justified because education was a noble cause.
[16] Otter College assured middle-class parents that their daughters would be educated around women of similar backgrounds.
[19] Martha Vicinus has argued that Hubbard's tone at times casts work as a sort of penance.
[23] In the first issue of The Women's Gazette Hubbard published a letter from Elizabeth Missing Sewell that advocated the creation of a club for impoverished gentlewomen.
[27] In 1889 Hubbard served as the provisional president of a new group known as the Court of the United Sisters' Friendly Society.
[1] Many of the idea that she advanced were dramatically opposed to the prevailing views in society at the time she began her activism, but became commonplace by the end of her life.
She also helped establish the Trained Midwives Registration Society with Zepherina Veitch,[29] initially serving as the organising secretary.
During meetings held at the offices of The Woman's Gazette, the idea of promoting inexpensive housing for women was frequently discussed.
These publications led to the establishment of the "Ladies Dwelling Co." in 1887, which built a house that eventually held 150 women.
The group initially focused on emigration to Canada,[39] but later expanded to New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.
[40] The society often worked with branches of the YWCA and local bishops in the locations that they sought to place women.
[42] In addition to advocating increased training for women, Hubbard also worked to raise awareness of existing employment opportunities.
[43] In 1871, she wrote a series of letters for women seeking employment titled Work for Ladies in Elementary Schools.
[46] She often found her work exhausting, periodically suffered from poor health that forced her to turn some of the operations over to friends.
[46] The Woman's Gazette cost two pence, making it too expensive for all but middle and upper class women.
[51] After the paper failed to turn a profit for several consecutive years, Hubbard renamed it Work and Leisure and began including articles on broader topics.
[53] Using Florence Nightingale as an example, she argued in The Woman's Gazette that nursing, both in hospitals and in private homes, was a career path that women should pursue.