Last Updated on January 6, 2024 by Kittredge Cherry
Vida Dutton Scudder is an American social reformer, professor, prominent lesbian author — and an officially recognized saint in the Episcopal Church. Her feast day is Oct. 10.
Vida Dutton Scudder, c. 1890 (Wikipedia)
Her ideas on economic inequality are especially relevant amid the financial crises of our times. Born in India to missionary parents in 1861, Scudder studied at Oxford, helped the poor, and became a professor at Wellesley College, where she taught English literature for 41 years. All her primary relationships were with women. For 35 years from 1919 until her death in 1954, Scudder lived with author Florence Converse in a lesbian relationship.
Scudder’s spirituality went hand in hand with her social conscience and love of learning. She was active in the Social Gospel movement, co-founding a settlement houses to reduce poverty, promoting Christian socialism and backing trade unions. Scudder wrote 16 books, including her autobiography “On Journey,” plus numerous articles on religious, political, and literary subjects.
A collection of Scudder’s lectures was published in 2022 for the first time in more than 100 years. “Social Teachings of the Christian Year: Lectures Delivered at the Cambridge Conference, 1918” includes a discussion and study guide for book clubs, church groups and personal reflection.
The first book to explore her theology in depth is “Beyond the Social Maze: Exploring Vida Dutton Scudder’s Theological Ethics” by Elizabeth L. Hinson-Hasty.
Scudder and Converse lived as a couple
Initially named Julia Davida Dutton Scudder, she was born on Dec. 15, 1861, in Madurai, India, to a family of missionaries. Her father, a Congregationalist minister, died the next year in an accidental drowning. Her mother the baby back to the family home in Boston and raised her there. Scudder went on to study at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Oxford University in England, where she encountered the
settlement houses serving poor people by living among them in the industrial slums.
Back in America, she discussed it with her friends from Smith College: “Suddenly, a Thought flew among us, like a bird coming out of the air; flashing above and around, seen, vanished: Why could not we young women start something of the same kind in our own country?” Scudder and Katharine Lee Bates, the lesbian reformer who wrote the song “America the Beautiful,” were instrumental in establishing Rivington Street Settlement, the first U.S. women’s Settlement house, in New York City. It was founded in 1889, a two weeks before the more famous Hull House in Chicago. She continued her activism while serving as an English literature professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
A number of other prominent lesbian humanitarians were leaders in the settlement house movement, including Jane Addams, Lillian Wald and Mabel Hyde Kittredge.
Converse (1871-1967), a New Orleans native and Wellesley graduate, served on the editorial staff of the Atlantic Monthly and The Churchman magazine. She wrote many novels with titles such as “The Story of Wellesley” and “The Holy Night.”
Vida Scudder and Florence Converse
The couple’s lesbian life is documented in the books “Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America” by Lillian Faderman and “Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins” by Julia M. Allen. Their long-term relationship lasted until Scudder died at age 91 on Oct. 9, 1954.
The two women are buried near each other at Newton Cemetery and Crematory in Newton, Massachusetts. The Internet makes it possible to visit to the graves of Scudder and Converse online.
Vida Dutton Scudder honored in contemporary art
Scudder appears with rainbow candles and her official Episcopal prayer in art by Jan Haen at the top of this post. It is part of his retelling of Scudder’s life story in the 2023 book “Heavenly LGBTQ+.” It is the sequel to his 2022 graphic non-fiction book “Heavenly Homos, Etc.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History.” Haen is a Dutch artist and Roman Catholic priest. His books include scenes that are rarely if ever portrayed by artists, such as Scudder among the poor.
“Vida Dutton Scudder” was sketched by Tobias Haller an iconographer, author, composer, and retired vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx, still assisting at a parish in Baltimore, Maryland. The image appears at the top of this post. Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints.
“Vida Dutton Scudder” by Tobias Haller
Scudder looks surprisingly hip and has a halo with the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ community in a 2020 portrait by North Carolina artist Jeremy Whitner. He is a gay Christian mystic and ordained minister with the Disciples of Christ. He has a master of divinity degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary.
“Vida Dutton Scudder” by Jeremy Whitner
Praying with Vida Dutton Scudder
In 2009 the Episcopal Church gave final authorization to add Scudder to its book of saints, “Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints.” The book was expanded in 2016 as “A Great Cloud of Witnesses.”
Scudder expressed her belief in the power of prayer when she wrote, “If prayer is the deep secret creative force that Jesus tells us it is, we should be very busy with it.” Here is the official prayer that the Episcopal Church offers in memory of this lesbian saint:
Most gracious God, you sent your beloved Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Raise up in your church witnesses who, after the example of your servant Vida Dutton Scudder, stand firm in proclaiming the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Related links:
Buried Together: Florence Converse + Vida Dutton Scudder by Elisa Rolle
Vida Dutton Scudder, American Lesbian Saint for Our Times (Queering the Church)
Vida Dutton Scudder, Educator and Witness for Peace (Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the Episcopal Church)
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Top image credit:
Vida Dutton Scudder with rainbow candles and prayer from the book “Heavenly LGBTQ+.: Queer Icons from LGBTQ Life, Religion, and History” by Jan Haen.
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in October 2017, expanded with new material over time, and most recently updated on Nov. 1, 2023.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
I enjoyed reading about this social reformer especially in light of the awful inequality in this age.