New Jersey's Remarkable Women by Wenzel Lynn;Binkowski Carol; & Carol J. Binkowski

New Jersey's Remarkable Women by Wenzel Lynn;Binkowski Carol; & Carol J. Binkowski

Author:Wenzel, Lynn;Binkowski, Carol; & Carol J. Binkowski [Wenzel, Lynn & Binkowski, Carol J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00


Ruth St. Denis

(1879–1968)

Founder of American Modern Dance

Ruth wept as she wrote: “Little Tedruth is in ashes. Who shall deliver me from the body of this continuous death?” All was gone from their beloved little home—the beautiful collection of priceless silk kimonos, the costumes, every memory they had so carefully laid in scrapbooks—everything consumed by the relentless flames. It seemed clear that this was a watershed moment in her life—an opportunity to start afresh after grievous loss. But how, and where? Her creative energies had been wasted. Her marriage was a sham. She was bone weary, tired of struggling to find her true purpose, drained from suppressing her own sensual longings, exhausted from laboring to find success in the world. Perhaps the fire was a message from the universe—find your truth, or die.

Ruth Dennis was born on a farm in Somerset on January 20, 1879 to Ruth—called Emma—Hull and Tom Dennis Sr., both of English heritage. Her mother had an enormous influence over Ruth during her entire life. The youngest child of a poor family from Canandaigua, New York, Emma Hull emerged from the heritage of great spiritual reform movements in the nineteenth century. The Hulls were devout Methodists and they lived among phrenologists, mesmerists, Fourierists, and Swedenborgians in a social and intellectual ferment referred to as Utopian Socialism and the Second Great Awakening. Imbued with the tenets of abolition, natural healing, and full equality between the sexes—characteristic of Christian utopianism—Emma adopted the metaphysical beliefs of Christian Science and the naturopathic theories of Samuel Hahnemann, founder of homeopathy. Although tormented by neurasthenia, Emma became one of eighteen female recruits at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1870 and earned a medical degree, the second in the school’s history awarded to a woman. Unfortunately, a subsequent nervous collapse ended her plans for a medical career. But she pursued her interest in physical health by following new concepts of hearty living, fresh air, good diet, and dress reform. Emma passed all these ideas on to her daughter, Ruth, who opined, “I am going to live to be 100 years old because I refuse to accept the mandates of fashion. My dances are a protest against tight lacing, tight shoes, tight clothes.”



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