Madeleine Vernet
| Madeleine Vernet | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Madeleine Eugénie Clémentine Victorine Cavelier 3 September 1878 Le Houlme, Seine-Inférieure, France |
| Died | 5 October 1949 (aged 71) Levallois-Perret, Paris, France |
Madeleine Vernet (3 September 1878 – 5 October 1949) was a French teacher, writer, libertarian and pacifist. She attacked abuses in the state system of foster homes, where children were often used for their labor. In 1906 she founded l'Avenir social, an orphanage for workers' children, which she ran despite government opposition until 1922, when she resigned after the board was taken over by Communists. She was a committed pacifist during World War I (1914–18), and continued to be involved in pacifist organizations after the war.
Madeleine Eugénie Clémentine Victorine Cavelier was born on 3 September 1878 in Le Houlme, then in Seine-Inférieure. In 1888 her parents settled in Barentin, Seine-Inférieure, where they ran a small business. Around 1900 her mother, now widowed, moved to Pissy-Pôville, Seine-Inférieure, and took charge of four girls from the public assistance. This inspired Madeleine to write a series of articles on "Bureautins" in Charles Guieysse's Pages libres journal in which she denounced the misery of foster children and the abuse tolerated by the administration. She wrote of families who received allowances for foster children and used them for labor. For her corrosive articles published in prominent newspapers she took the pen name "Madeleine Vernet". In response, the administration removed the girls assigned to her mother. Some time later she tried to create a first orphanage run by worker's cooperatives in the Rouen region, but the project failed.
In 1904 Madeleine Vernet participated in founding the Ruche at Rambouillet, a school dedicated to avant-garde education. She said educating children is one of the greatest social responsibilities. In late 1904 she went to Paris where she worked as a bookkeeper and tried to gain support for her plans from unions and cooperatives, journalists and deputies. In Paris she met Albert Thomas, Marcel Sembat and Georges Yvetot. She was disappointed in the lack of interest of the feminists, who were more concerned with themselves than with the social struggle. She was already associated with libertarian circles, and published a brochure on Free Love. The brochure denounced marriage, source of hypocrisy and sorrow, and affirmed the value of true love without chains or social obligations. However, she believed that a woman should become a mother. She contributed to Libertaire and Temps Nouveaux during the pre-war years, writing against the extremes of the neo-Malthusian doctrine which led to either reduction or elimination of births.
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