Notable Peace & Justice Activists Posters “Mo...-”
with curriculum enrichment resources for social studies classrooms, teachers, home schoolers, offices.

Elizabeth Montagu
Maria Montessori
Hannah More

Sir Thomas More
Michael Moore
William Morris

Elizabeth Montagu
b. 10-2-1718; Yorkshire, England
d. 8-25-1800; London

Elizabeth Montagu, a social reformer and patron of the arts, was a leader in the women's social and educational movement made up of the privileged women known as the Blue Stocking Society. The name came about as an indication of the informal nature of the society - formal black silk stockings were not required.

• Elizabeth Montagu, the Queen of the Bluestockings

Maria Montessori is best known today for the method of education she originally developed to teach underpriviliged children in urban slums. Montessori observed that these presumed “feeble-minded” children were inherently gifted with an “absorbent mind” and would flourish in prepared environments with age sensitive activities that involve exploration, manipulations, order, repetition, abstraction, and communication.

Montessori, the first woman to earn a medical degree in Italy (1896), was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949, 1950, and 1951. Montessori died 5-6-1952. The year 2007 marked the 100th anniversary of Montessori education.

• more Montessori posters

Hannah More
b. 2-2-1745; Bristol, England
d. 9-7-1833

Hannah More, a teacher, religious writer, philanthropist and social reformer, was one of the most influential women of her day. She associated with the intellectual society of England: actor and playwright David Garrick, painter Joshua Reynolds, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Elizabeth Montagu (Blue Stocking Society); later she influenced abolitionist William Wilberforce. She was accused of “Methodist” tendencies for teaching farm children to read because workers who could read would would leave the farms and that would be “fatal to agriculture”.

• Hannah More: The First Victorian

Sir Thomas More
b. 2-7-1478; London, England
d. 7-6-1535; Tower Hill, London (beheaded)

Theologian Sir Thomas More most well-known and controversial work, Utopia, a novel in Latin, was completed and published in 1516. It is considered a “shrewd critique of economic and social exploitation in pre-modern Europe and that More was one of the key intellectual figures in the early development of socialist ideas.”

• A Man for All Seasons (movie 1966)

Michael Moore
b. 4-23-1954; Flint, MI

Social critic, author, and filmmaker Michael Moore exposes the ramifications of “globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, and the American health care system”.

Moore first came to general public attention with his documentary film, Roger and Me, about the closing of General Motors factories in Flint.

Among his projects are four of the top nine highest-grossing documentaries of all time: Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story.

Mother Teresa, neé Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu
b. 8-27-1910; Macedonia
d. 9-5-1997; Calcutta, India

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, born in Macedonia in 1910, is known as Mother Teresa, founder of the order of the Missionaries of Charity.

This Roman Catholic congregation of women is dedicated to the very poor, particularly the destitute of India. Her order has opened numerous centers, serving the blind, the aged, the crippled, the lepers, as well as, those who are dying.

When Pope Paul awarded her the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, he proclaimed her to be “an example and symbol of the discovery...that man is our brother.” She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. (bookmark text)

• more Mother Teresa posters

Lucretia Mott
b. 1-3-1793; Nantucket, MA
d. 11-11-1880

Lucretia Mott (née Coffin) was educated at a Quaker boarding school and eventually became a teacher. She was drawn to activism when she discovered the male teachers were paid twice as much as the women teachers.

Mott, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was a principal organizer of the first women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, NY., and a signer of the Declaration of Sentiments. She was also an abolitionist and one of the founders of Swarthmore College in 1864.

Lucretia Mott and Levi Coffin, known as the "President of the Underground Railroad”, were cousins.

Lucretia Mott quotes ~
• “It is not Christianity, but priestcraft that has subjected woman as we find her.”
• “The cause of Peace has had my share of efforts, taking the ultra non-resistance ground - that a Christian cannot consistently uphold, and actively support, a government based on the sword, or whose ultimate resort is to the destroying weapons.”
• “It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practise is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ.”
• “I have no idea of submitting tamely to injustice inflicted either on me or on the slave. I will oppose it with all the moral powers with which I am endowed. I am no advocate of passivity.”
• “If our principles are right, why should we be cowards?”

• Lucretia Mott
• A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights (Lurectia Mott's sister)