Josephine Butler

Social reformer JB is primarily remembered for her unrelenting efforts in the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts during the second half of the nineteenth century. She was both a gifted orator and a prolific writer on the many causes she espoused. Author of nearly forty pamphlets, she also composed books of political and personal writings: essays, biographies of people whose lives influenced her own, and an autobiography. Almost all of her writings address questions of social and political import—the repeal campaign, the double sexual standard, women's rights, and religious issues.