Robinson, Lida Parce

ROBINSON, LIDA PARCE (1868-1923). A member of the Socialist Party of America, Parce wrote on both woman’s rights and materialist history. Born St. Joseph, Michigan, Lida Parce, following her graduation from Albion College, married General Herbert Fulwiler Robinson and relocated to Phoenix, where he served in the National Guard and she began her political work. She served as corresponding secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association and then became the president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association. In cooperation with local labor leaders, she managed to get suffrage bills up before the state legislature. Although unsuccessful in securing the vote, she put out a newsletter and kept up her agitational work.

In 1905, having divorced her husband, described as a “staunch Republican, Parce moved to Chicago, where she joined the Socialist Party, taught school, and pursued studies at the University of Chicago. She wrote articles for various liberal presses and most often for The Socialist Woman, edited by Josephine Conger-Kaneko. She objected particularly to chivalrous men who envisioned a utopian future where women reigned happily over their household. On the Woman Question, she wrote, socialist men should “leave off tilting at clotheslines.”

In 1913, the Charles H. Kerr Company published a revision of an earlier work provided, in Parce’s words, an economic interpretation of history. Believing the principal value in studying history is the training of judgment rather than celebrating famous men or applauding nations, she offered a counter narrative. She substituted collective achievements for the valor of individuals and the motive force of evolution for the “Will of God.” the motive force of evolution. Like August Bebel and Engels before her, Parce traced social development from savagery, through barbarism, and into modern times, examining at each point family organization and women’s role and status. Her main lesson, boldly underscored is that “the normal habit of the human race is the communal habit.

Hu, Joanna, “Biographical Sketch of Lida P. Robinson,” Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920. Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000. Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street Press, n.d.- https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1009638294

Parce, Lida. Economic Determinism; Or, the Economic Interpretation of History. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Co., 1913).